Maria Faust - as & compositions
Lars Pilgaard - g
Kresten Osgood - Dr
Maria Faust (born 1979 in Kuressaare) is an Estonian saxophonist and composer living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Faust is best known in the fields of third wave jazz, contemporary big band, improvisational music and other alternative genres. She has created extraordinary musical waves that have sent her and her bands on tours of concert halls and music festivals around the world.
Maria Faust grew up under the communist regime in Estonia, where she received a classical education, but likes to compare her music school to "barracks for child soldiers". At the conservatory there, she did not feel that there was a place for her musically. Mozart had to sound like Mozart, and Bach had to sound like Bach, so she wanted something else. Jazz and improvisational music took over her in Tallinn, but she had to leave the country in order to develop further. With the help of the Danish Cultural Institute, Maria Faust came to the Southern Danish Conservatory of Music. Even in her new environment, she did not feel like she had entered the world of jazz. "I am a child of communism!" I didn't swing. I marched! So I basically just tried to be true to myself. It was my choice.''
Maria Faust neither plays nor composes in traditional ways and has no interest in doing so. Her big breakthrough, the very personal album SACRUM FACERE (Latin for human sacrifice), perfectly documents this. The album draws its inspiration from the culture and surroundings of the Russian-Estonian border region, where the descendants of the exiled Orthodox still live. Here she collected work songs, hymns, lullabies and combined this material with classical music and free improvisation. The album received generally positive reviews, culminating in two Danish Music Awards in 2014. (Jazz Composer of the Year and Jazz Crossover Publication of the Year).
in 2016 In the beginning, Maria and Danish singer and composer Kira Skov traveled to Estonia, where they discovered a region where time seemed to stand still. Breaking new creative paths together in an abandoned Russian Orthodox church where there was no electricity or water, they recorded a joint spiritually oriented masterpiece IN THE BEGINNING with a big band and an Estonian choir. The Danish news paper Berlingske gave the record 6/6 stars and called it "a unique work of majestic sacred beauty... The records Skov and Faust came home with are nothing short of menacing." Since 2017 in November the publication won 2 Danish music awards: Vocal Jazz Publication of the Year and Jazz Composer(s) of the Year. The project also won a prize from the Danish Critics Association and was nominated for both the Estonian Music Awards and the Carl Prisen 2018.
Courage is a hallmark of Maria Faust, her music and projects with ensembles where she explores unusual instruments and techniques. She is constantly expanding her range of sounds, and her new project MACHINA consists of an unprecedented combination of traditional music forms, combined with improvisation, jazz and soundscapes. In her own musical language, she presents original compositional ideas, a universe of chamber music without drums, but with horns, two basses, a cello and a piano - all this charmingly interacts with the engines of the billowing boats rushing through the fog, the creaks of old rusted hulls, the breath of the wind and the chirping of birds. in the sea
MACHINA, like Maria Faust's previous publications, begins with what she herself calls an "analysis of memory." She draws inspiration from personal and collective memories and the subconscious. Maria Faust says that she sees "water as a symbol of a natural and unpredictable force that suppresses emotions such as anger and sadness" and asks "why should we suppress these emotions while we emphasize, for example, happiness?".
At the "Vilnius Mama Jazz" festival, Maria Faust will present the project "Catastrophe: 4th mutation" with her trio.
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Harry Weir - ts, bcl
Fergus McCreadie - Mr
Kevin Cahill - gtr
Gus Stirrat - Bgtr
Graham Costello - dr & compositions
Scottish drummer and composer Graham Costello's band STRATA creates hypnotic and powerful minimalist music. Graham Costello's sound ranges from subtle, meditative ambient to cinematic post-rock, harnessing the power of repetitive, immersive melodies. With his band STRATA, he has been nominated for Scottish Album of the Year and eight Scottish Jazz Awards. The collective's energetic, organic and rhythmic music combined with mesmerizing elements of minimalism was described by The National as a "meteor on and off the stage".
Costello and his associates are among the most prominent new acts in Scottish jazz, having successfully broken into the UK and international jazz scene with the likes of corto.alto and Fergus McCreadie.
After the widely publicized 2019 of the presented debut album "OBELISK", 2021 In May, Costello released his second album Second Lives with STRATA on Gearbox Records to critical acclaim and was named one of the best of 2021 by the UK's leading jazz publication Jazzwise. jazz albums.
This year, Costello refined STRATA's sound, focusing more on repeats and cyclical rhythms and shifting the weight of the new music more and more to the drums.
Having started playing drums at the age of six, Costello was self-taught until his early twenties. He later studied jazz at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, graduating in 2016. with first class honours.
His musical career began primarily with involvement in the Scottish DIY/indie scene, the musician has toured throughout the UK and Europe with noise duo Young Philadelphia and electro-psych group Outblinker, enjoying the wonderful warmth and breadth of the independent music scene.
The organizers reserve the right to change the program.
The project is financed by the Lithuanian Council of Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.
