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THURSDAY 6 TO SATURDAY 15 NOVEMBER
Guimarães Jazz
Ages 6 and up
Event
All music — and jazz in particular, given its specific characteristics — is a space of openness to the singularity expressed by the musician, thus linking us to a personal vision of reality.
As such, it is our duty, as cultural agents organizing a festival, to prioritize knowledge of the greatest possible diversity of worldviews — that is, of musical styles and languages — because only in this way can we reach a minimally intelligible understanding of our listening experiences within the context of an unstable and still-developing world.
Throughout its existence — 34 years celebrated this year — Guimarães Jazz has always sought to remain faithful to this principle of programming and, for that reason, its actions have consistently been marked by discursive restraint and by a consistent effort to avoid rigid classifications that only do harm to the music. Especially in the polarized moment we are living through, rhetorical deceleration seems an even more urgent imperative in order to fulfill that goal of openness.
This ultimately means focusing on the essential aspect of our mission: to serve as a promoter of the past and present history of jazz, while at the same time seeking to sublimate the most valuable elements that the past has to offer and highlight what musicians are currently striving to build for the future.
In 2025, we once again embrace this demanding challenge and present, once more, a lineup of musicians and projects that we believe reflect this philosophy and honor both the festival and its audience.
Here, then, is the program for the 34th edition of Guimarães Jazz.
The first two concerts of the official festival program will be marked by the presence of the voice, through two projects led by musicians who are stylistically and generationally very different, yet who share an elegiac connection to the musical roots of jazz.
The first case is “Blues Blood”, the latest creative work by Immanuel Wilkins, a still very young composer and saxophonist who is already one of the most prominent names of his generation in the jazz circuit. For this concert, he will be joined by an expanded ensemble including three vocalists, with the purpose of paying homage to the African-American musical tradition.
The second night, in turn, will see the return — twenty years later — of Maria João to Guimarães Jazz, one of the most charismatic and influential figures in Portuguese jazz. In this festival edition, she will celebrate 40 years of career with the support of her band, a vocal choir, and the Orquestra de Guimarães, in a new project titled “Abundância”, where she revisits her African roots.
The closing concert of the festival’s first weekend will bring, for the first time to this stage, the Fred Hersch Trio. Hersch is an essential pianist of contemporary jazz, known for a multifaceted and challenging body of work. He will perform with two outstanding musicians, in a concert expected to stand at the highest level of the jazz canon.
Alongside the voice, the piano is one of the strong presences in this year’s edition of Guimarães Jazz. However, it will be a quintet led by the renowned saxophonist Mark Turner that will open the second weekend. Over the past three decades, Turner has developed a distinguished career both as a bandleader and collaborator with some of the great names in jazz, and his presence is once again worthy of public recognition.
The two following nights will feature projects grounded in radically divergent concepts, both centered around the piano. On Friday, we present a trio composed of Craig Taborn, Tomeka Reid, and Ches Smith — three exceptional musicians working within the interstitial spaces where jazz opens itself to contemporary trends of musical hybridity. This project brings together piano, cello, and drums in an unusual and challenging ensemble.
The festival’s closing concert will welcome the return of Danilo Pérez, the multi-award-winning Panamanian pianist and composer with a prestigious jazz trajectory. He will perform his compositions accompanied by the historic Bohuslän Big Band, from Sweden, bringing this annual concert cycle to an end with a harmonious fusion of classicism and musical exoticism that characterizes Pérez’s work.
In parallel with the main program at the CCVF’s main auditorium, the 34th edition of Guimarães Jazz, as in previous years, includes several concerts in the secondary auditorium, especially those resulting from partnerships with institutions and collectives that play a relevant role in contemporary music in Portugal.
On the first Saturday, there will be a double session: first, a performance by the Hugo Santos 5tet, winner of the International Jazz Competition organized by the Jazz Studies Center of the University of Aveiro, which promotes the work of young musicians at the beginning of their professional careers; next, the project “Of Fragility and Impermanence” led by bassist André Carvalho, bringing together key figures from the current Portuguese jazz scene.
The Sunday of the first weekend will feature a show proposed by the association Porta-Jazz, starring a quintet of four musicians and a narrator led by the young pianist Clara Lacerda. As usual, this concert will focus on the interdisciplinary crossing of jazz with other arts — this year, that extra-musical axis is literature, expressed through the presence of Vasco Gato’s poetry and voice.
To conclude the festival’s partnership program, Sonoscopia will present, on the last afternoon of Guimarães Jazz, the Trio Kvelvane–Østvang–Vermeulen — a recent formation composed of three musicians from Norway and Belgium, two of Europe’s most dynamic scenes for free improvisation. They will represent, in this edition, the idioms of experimentation that are one of the key creative vectors of contemporary music.
Finally, a closing note to highlight the group that will lead this year’s jam sessions and jazz workshops, which run throughout the festival and are one of its most vital elements. The Alex Hitchcock Quintet, led by a New York–based British saxophonist, consists of a diverse group of young musicians with significant experience on the international jazz circuit. As usual, in addition to the educational and collaborative activities, the group will also perform in two concerts: one under its own name, and another in collaboration with the Orquestra de Jazz da ESMAE, presenting the outcomes of their joint work with the students on interpreting Alex Hitchcock’s compositions.
— Ivo Martins
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PROGRAM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 9:30 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Immanuel Wilkins
Blues Blood
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7 – 9:30 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Maria João & Orquestra de Guimarães
Abundância – A Celebration of 40 Years in Music
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8 – 4:00 PM
CCVF / Small Auditorium
Project by the Jazz Studies Center of the University of Aveiro / Guimarães Jazz
Hugo Santos 5tet
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8 – 6:00 PM
CCVF / Small Auditorium
André Carvalho
Of Fragility and Impermanence
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8 – 9:30 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Fred Hersch Trio
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 5:00 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Project by ESMAE Jazz Orchestra / Guimarães Jazz
Conducted by Alex Hitchcock Quintet
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9 – 9:30 PM
CIAJG / Black Box
Project by Porta-Jazz / Guimarães Jazz
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 9:30 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Mark Turner Quintet
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – 9:30 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Craig Taborn, Tomeka Reid & Ches Smith
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – 4:00 PM
CCVF / Small Auditorium
Project by Sonoscopia / Guimarães Jazz
Trio Kvelvane – Østvang – Vermeulen
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – 6:00 PM
CCVF / Small Auditorium
Alex Hitchcock Quintet
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – 9:30 PM
CCVF / Grande Auditório Francisca Abreu
Danilo Pérez with Bohuslän Big Band
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PARALLEL ACTIVITIES
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 to SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Convívio / 11:59 PM – 2:00 AM
Jam Sessions
Led by Alex Hitchcock Quintet
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11 to FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14
CCVF / 2:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Jazz Workshops
Led by Alex Hitchcock Quintet
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13 to SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15
CCVF / Café Concerto / 11:59 PM – 2:00 AM
Jam Sessions
Led by Alex Hitchcock Quintet