These days, before the start of the Novi Sad Jazz Festival’s main concert programme, each day flows as if having wings, as if everything we touched by our hand, or eyes, flies at a great speed, as if I was flying through the day, together with all those tangible and intangible things, as if I was flying through music, glancing over the texts and photos, somewhere far away and here, towards the bells coming from Katolička porta. Music is coming from everywhere, and like pebbles, or coloured glass fragments, in an encounter with mirrors, it is creating an image – changeable, coloured, regular, like the images changing in a kaleidoscope.
It is all happening as if everything around me, me included, can land at any moment. The rhythm of my heart falls into pace with the picture in my field of view and hearing. Inside, a ball bounces up and down, up and down, like some silent clacker.
I used to love looking through the kaleidoscope and turn it in one and then the other direction. The coloured glass fragments always made multi-coloured, almost audible images of a harmonious world that at one moment looked like a crystal, like a flower in the other, or multi-coloured feathers on the wings of birds coming from places far away in yet another. These images will always remind me of mornings, of wind in the hair of playful girls running. A new vigour and wind at the back, new light and another new beginning.
Novi Sad has become the European Capital of Culture 2021. What news!
This piece of news slowly opens new, invisible gates towards new bridges of friendship, love, opportunities and hope for our youth, our maturity and our experience, whatever kind of experience it is, for all experiences that have kept the flame of life burning, the flame of hope and strength for virtuous and nice thoughts, virtuous and durable deeds that have made this new beginning, coming back to the right track, possible.
If only I could invite the whole world to be our guests, if I could, if the whole world could come, if they could step onto our streets, our boulevards, sail the Danube and other rivers of ours, if we could build visible bridges with our hands, build invisible bridges in our minds, make the world resonate with goodness, so that all children can sleep peacefully, grow up and grow over all man-made shadows and beam their smiles on every dark corner and shed light with their serenity, if we could step into the next morning and the future together as humans, as friends, and keep playing music together.
We will, we will play together. If there are clouds over our city, because it is autumn, let them be clouds of our music and the music from all over the world.
Welcome to the Novi Sad Jazz Festival!
Vesna Kaćanski
Despite the challenges that we face each year, the Novi Sad Jazz Festival has become a constant in our city. Once again, for ten days we are the hosts of jazz musicians from the Region, USA, European countries, from the Asian continent, from Serbia…
We will have an opportunity to hear the versatile Dave Douglas with the New Sanctuary project and his approaches to improvised music, as well as electrified Marcus Strickland with his new album TWI-LIFE. I am particularly pleased that, after several years, we will have the performance of the brilliant Vasil Hadžimanov Band, which is one of the rare, lasting bands on our scene whose last album was met with critical acclaim worldwide.
One of the today’s greatest drummers Greg Hutchinson will play with the international band led by Jure Pukl and Daniela Nösig, as well as the young saxophone player Tim Green, accompanied by ‟our” Trip trio. There will be some blues too, the excellent Amina Claudine Myers on piano, the piano trio of the Austrian singer and pianist Susane Sawoff will perform her original music, as well as our flutist and composer, Novi Sad’s Milena Jančurić with an international band. Coming from Italy is the piano trio led by the drummer Roberto Gatto, spiced up with electronics and effects, and from our region we have an orchestra that can rarely be seen – The New Spark Jazz Orchestra led by Jasna Jovićević…
Come, gain the opportunity to hear excellent, diverse music, workshops and exhibitions, let us be the city of culture, which we already are.
Adam Klemm