This evening is no ordinary story. The concert that Vilnius Mama Jazz invites you to experience is about talent and pain, about tragic loss, return, past, present and future. A concert that, if the world were fair, would be a little different. But at the same time, it is also a concert that celebrates music that is not destined to be forgotten. A music that cannot be silenced even by the most painful loss.

The music world suffered just such a loss in 2008, when one of Europe's most talented jazz musicians, Swedish pianist Esbjörn Svensson, tragically passed away. The trio he founded, modestly named "e.s.t", became a benchmark for subtle, slightly melancholic Nordic jazz and had a huge impact on the development of European jazz. From rock to classical, Esbjörn's wide-ranging musical understanding from his teens onwards demonstrated impressive creativity and skill.

The Stockholm Royal College of Music graduate formed his hugely successful trio in 1993, releasing their first album When Everyone Is Gone that year to great critical acclaim.

From the very beginning, the band's music has been characterised by a creative breaking down of barriers and a play on different genres. Combining live and electronic sounds, the musicians have cited classical composer Bella Bartok and the cult British alternative rock band Radiohead among their influences. They performed not only in jazz venues, but also in rock clubs, attracting a reluctant young audience.

Each subsequent recording from the band only increased the audience's interest, and by the turn of the century the trio's music had made the whole world "sick". So did America, which was wary of Scandinavian jazz, and where the band's concerts and the 2003 album Seven Days Of Falling were a huge success.

Tours in Europe, the US and Asia, and numerous jazz awards followed the band right up to its tragic end. In May 2006, Esbjörn Svensson's trio became the first European band to be featured on the cover of the world's leading jazz magazine, Downbeat, published in the USA. 

This is just one of the many accolades the band has received. Esbjörn Svensson has been voted Sweden's best jazz musician and composer on several occasions, and the band has won music awards in Germany, France and other countries.

In June 2008, the jazz world received the terrible news that Esbjörn Svensson had drowned while diving near Stockholm.

After his death, two more recordings were released from the band's last collaborative session in Australia. Almost 17 years after Esbjörn Svensson's death, the interest in his trio's creative legacy continues to grow, and the musicians who were part of this unique jazz phenomenon will be in Vilnius to help you get to know it.

The two continuing members of the trio, Magnus Öström, Esbjörn's childhood friend and drummer, who started playing with him in 1990, and Dan Berglund, the bassist who played with the band throughout its career, are both coming to Vilnius.

In 2013, they started performing symphonic versions of Esbjörn Svensson's trio works, and the year before last they gave a special concert to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the trio's debut. Only one performance was planned in Stockholm, but the audience reaction was such that it quickly became clear that there was too much of an audience hungry for this music to be disappointed.

Since then, the band we'll hear in Vilnius has visited a number of Europe's most prestigious venues and festivals, and an audio recording of their Cologne performance was released last year. On stage, you will see not three but six musicians, bringing new colours to a work that has not lost its relevance and charm over the decades.

The members of the band are well-known musicians on the jazz scene. For example, Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius has played in the bands of jazz legends Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown, while Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick and his band were also heard by Vilnius Mama Jazz audiences in 2018.

All of the musicians in the band that has given new life to the music of Esbjörn Svensson's Trio have successful solo careers. The fact that he has reunited under the banner of his late colleague's music is further proof of how exceptional this music is.