Aleksandar Bahun, piano
Petar Radmilović, drums • Fedor Ruškuc, double bass
Igor Molnar, bass guitar • Maks Kočetov, saxophone
ALEKSANDAR BAHUN
Aleksandar Bahun (composer, arranger, pianist) was born in Novi Sad into an old musical family of Novi Sad. He completed his primary and high music education at Music School “Isidor Bajić,” going on to study Composition at the Academy of Arts.
At the beginning of 1990, he founded his first jazz band AB Sextet, performing with it in clubs and at cultural events in Novi Sad for several years.
In the mid 1996 Adam Klemm and Aleksandar Bahun founded the Stomp Quartet, performing at the Jazz Time Fest in Novi Sad in November 1997 as the youngest ensemble playing their original music and as the festival hosts.
By the end of 1998 he founded the Aleksandar Bahun Trio, including Ištvan Mađarić, Robert Pongo, and Aleksandar as a pianist and author, with whom he appears at a couple of national jazz festival and honing the ECM jazz, which distinguishes them from the mainstream of the 1990s as it is an open form jazz that allows all kinds of experimentations.
The same year he became a member of the RTV NS Big Band and the Vojvodina Youth Big Band for a while.
In the early 2004, Aleksandar joined the Belgrade-based Latin jazz band Fiesta Latina, performing in our country and abroad.
Later that year Adam Klemm, Igor Molnar and Aleksandar founded a band MOBADA, which plays original music only. The band appeared at the Umbria Jazz Balkanic Windows Festival and the Novi Sad Jazz Festival…
In summer 2006, Vladimir Samardžić and Aleksandar founded the authorial band Pannonia Project, whose first presentation was at the film festival Motovun 2006 (Croatia), followed by the Umbria Jazz Balkanic Windows Festival in August 2006, and the Novi Sad Jazz Festival in November that same year, where they were reinforced by Marko Đorđević as the lead trumpet.
He has collaborated with the Belgrade almost big band orchestra Jazz Connection composed of the leading national jazz soloists, performing at the official opening of the Serbian Film Festival in July 2007with Dusko Goykovich, Dado Topić…
Later that summer, he went to Dortmund as one of the representatives of the cultural delegation of Novi Sad within cultural cooperation between the two cities Novi Sad-Dortmund, where he worked with German saxophonist Uwe Plath. The same year, he performed at the Valjevo and Petrovac Jazz Festivals (latter in Montenegro) with Pannonia Project.
In November 2007, he was invited by maestro Bubiša Simić to perform as a guest of the RTS Big Band in the Kolarac National University Hall as part of the concert-homage to our brilliant pianist, arranger, composer – Bora Roković, where he gave a notable performance.
During the summer of 2008, he did the music and arrangements for the play KNKN PNKN with the newly-founded troupe “Jorik”, directed by Žanko Tomić, which premiered at BELEF 08, winning the title of the best artistic achievement of that year by the Professional Council of the festival.
In November 2010 he performed with the Pannonia Project ensemble at the Belgrade Jazz Festival, promoting The Bridge album, as well as in the Novi Sad Studio M within the Novi Sad Jazz Festival, also promoting this album, where he is credited as a composer and arranger.
For the last couple of years Aleksandar has been active performing in our country and abroad with the most eminent domestic jazz musicians (Dušan Novakov, Dušan Ivanišević, Vladimir Kostadinović, Slobodan Bata Božanić, Branko Marković, Milan Pavković, Ljubiša Paunić, Alexandar Jaćimović, Vladimir Krnetić, Max Kochetov, Marko Đorđević (NY), Uwe Plath, Jelena Kuljić, Pannonia Project, NS Big Band……)
At the beginning of 2015 he composed music for the play “The Day When We Met”, which is on the regular repertoire of the Serbian National Theatre, and works on a number of projects with Serbian and foreign artists from various fields of culture and media – radio, film, theatre, theatre troups, and is a regular member of the Serbian National Theatre’s Opera.
PETAR RADMILOVIĆ
Petar Radmilović, born 19th June 1972 in Belgrade. Since 1994 he has been a permanent member of the RTS Big Band. While in the Big Band he has worked with Dusko Goykovich, Bora Roković, Steve Gut, Mile Pavlović, Mića Marković, Vlada Maričić, Diane Shuur, Vito Giordano, Don Menza, Ack van Royen, Peter Herbotzheimer, Les McCann, Wilson de Oliveira, Shawn Monteiro, Catrine Finch, Nigel Kennedy, Eddie Henderson, Vic Vogel, Jessie Davis, Steve Turre, Randy Brecker, etc. His studio work is reflected in over fifty recorded albums and several hundreds of permanent recordings for the needs of Radio Belgrade. In 2007 he became endorser of the company Zildjian, and in 2008 of Mapex drums, so he holds clinics around Serbia.
FEDOR RUŠKUC
Born in Novi Sad in 1980, Fedor Ruškuc had his first encounter with music at the age of 6. After elementary music school where he played the violin, he changed the instrument, completing the secondary music education at the ”Isidor Bajić” music high school in the Double Bass Department with Prof. Goran Kerleta.
After the”Isidor Bajić” music school, he wento on to study, first in Graz (Austria) with Prof. Wayne Darling and then in Cologne, Germany (2002) with Prof. Dieter Manderscheid, where he graduated with a Master Diploma in 2005.
The winner of numerous awards, both with varous ensembles and solo, he charished most the one he won as the best double bass player in the “Jimmy Woddy Award 2008” competition.
He has performed all over Europe and in Russia, and can be heard on more than ten resealses with different bands. With the group “East Affair” he took part in the 2010 film production of the WDR television “Global Local”.
Among others, he has collaborated with Keith Copeland, Dennis Rowland, Christian Jacob, Antonia Bennet, Eliot Mason, Uwe Plath, to name a few. Fedor is a permament member of the Ferenc and Magnus Mehl Quartet, the Magnus Mehl Quartet, and the East West European Orchestra TWINS 2010.
In spring 2010 he returned to Novi Sad, where he still lives and works.
He has presented his authorial work performed by the band Fedorchestra to the audience at the Cultural Centre of Novi Sad. He has recorded about twenty CDs in our country and abroad.
IGOR MOLNAR
Bass guitarist, double bass player and composer Igor Molnar was born in Novi Sad in 1965. After completion of his high school education at Music School “Isidor Bajić”, he studied composition in class of Prof. Rudolf Brucci and Miroslav Štatkić. In 1991 he started studying jazz music at the academy “Franz Lizst” in Budapest. Upon graduation in 1995, he returned to Novi Sad where he worked as an editor of programme called “Jazz Impuls” on “NS+” television channel and the conductor of the Vojvodina Youth Big Band. From 1997 to 1999 Igor Molnar worked as an editor of music programmes at the Cultural Centre of Novi Sad, founded a small jazz festival called “Jazztime Fest” and the first jazz school under the patronage of the Soros Open Society Foundations. At that time he also led his group “Havana Jam” with a Madagascar singer and percussionist Jeanot Randimbiarison. Since 2002 he has been leading jazz workshops of SMS “Isidor Bajić” and collaborating with a number of international and national jazz musicians. Many students of this class have continued their studies of jazz at music academies throughout Europe. He works for the “YALE SMN” University and is a jazz instructor licensed by the British “Royal College of Music”. With his bands, as an author and performer, Igor Molnar has appeared at numerous major jazz events in Serbia and the countries of the region. He is currently leading his own band “Round Midnight Quartet”, which fosters post bap style, and the project “City Raiwalker”.
MAKSIM KOČETOV
Born in 1972 in Kiev, Maksim ‟Maks” Kochetov studied saxophone at the Kiev State Music College ‟R.M.Gliera” from 1992 to 1995. In 1997, he left for Erfrut (Germany) to attend a summer course led by Zbigniew Namysłowski and John Taylor. Since the mid-2000s he has been living and working in Serbia. In 2010, he became a member of the RTS Big Band, and subsequently, the first alto of the orchestra. During 2013 Kochetov recorded his first album with his original music,‟13:30”, with a quartet, in the neo-bop style, which is to be released this autumn by the newly-established Rambo Amadeus’ label Hipišizik/Mascom.