Vilnius Swing Music Festival - Svingelis 2024 - Jazz for dancing
What a Jazz dance studio presents the biggest swing dance and music fiesta - Svingelis 2024 festival takes place on 7-8 June.
This year we are celebrating orchestras - the festival programme includes concerts by the Vilnius JJAZZ Ensemble and the Swing Paradise All Stars Big Band.
The Vilnius JJAZZ Ensemble is the most renowned and high-quality orchestra of professional jazz performers, led by Lithuanian composer Jievars Jasinski. The ensemble will present their original works, specially adapted for the Svingelis 2024 festival, with the best Lithuanian jazz musicians at the forefront and a unique opportunity to hear this big band big music in the specially dressed up environment of the Vaidila Theatre for that evening. The concert will take place in the early evening of 7 June, followed by jazz for dancing and a late jam session (from ~01:00), which will be free of charge for concert participants.
Swing Paradise All Stars Big Band is a unique project of the What a Jazz project - every year, together with the Swing Paradise Dance Festival, we organise the All Stars Big Band Orchestra, a group of Lithuanian and international guests who will put together a special programme of Swing Classics. These include orchestral arrangements by Count Basie, Chick Webb, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and other great jazz legends, brought to life for dancers on the floor of Vaidila Theatre. The orchestra features Remis Rančys, Jievaras Jasinskis, Kęstutis Vaiginis, Dominykas Vyšniauskas and other Lithuanian jazz musicians. This special two-part concert is accompanied by a dance show programme and will take place on the evening of 8 June - tickets are limited.
About SVINGELIS.LT
Svingelis is an educational project about jazz for dancing. It is a gold fund of African-American culture of the first half of the 20th century - jass, blues, ragtime, stride, hot jazz, boogie woogie, swing, rhythm & & blues, bebop. Each jazz had its own dance, and each dance replaced jazz, resulting in a wide variety of genres, not only of music, but also of the dances that surrounded them - one step, fox trot, breakaway, black bottom, charleston, lindy hop, shag, balboa, boogie woogie. Although jazz emerged in the multicultural environment of the USA, much of its roots were fed from the beginning by African rhythms and the oppressive black experience in the painful history of the USA. From this was born this "American" art form - jazz - enriched with the hopefulness of the blues and the pulse of swing.
We are dancers and jazz enthusiasts who are committed to creating a quality space for "traditional" jazz and swing - a jazz that was originally meant to be danced.
Swingelis is also known as the Vilnius Swing Music Festival since 2023.
