Wayne Brown is one of the best pianists in Afro-American jazz. His love for this genre and his ongoing wish to discover new influences and various styles have progressively led him toward fruitful collaborations with Billy Ocean, Ruby Turner, Earth, Wind and Fire, Stevie Winwood, Jonathon Butler, George Michael, whom he worked with as writer and producer, and with Coleman Hawkins, Tal Farlow and Virtual Jazz Band, whom he joined as musician. In 2000, he composed the soundtrack for Teish O’ Day, which has offered him the opportunity to hold a concert at the Burt Bacharach tribute, at The Royal Albert Hall. In 2007, he has produced an album dedicated to the commemoration of 200 years from the abolition of slavery. This album reunites the finest Afro-American jazz voices, past and present.
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Maria Raducanu is one of the most representative figures of Romanian jazz, stimulated in interpretation by her love for life, by the joy of seeing people appreciate her songs and by creating authentic jazz music, transposing the past in contemporary tunes. She released 7 albums, going from Romanian to French, Spanish, Russian or Portuguese jazz, a sound loved by anyone who gets the chance to listen to it. She sang with great Romanian musicians as Johnny Răducanu, Mircea Tiberian, Vlaicu Golcea, Mihai Iordache but also international musicians as Maurice de Martin, Jan Roder and Michael Griener, Siegfried Kessler, Malo Vallois or Krister Jonsson. In 2005 she received the Prize for The Most Avant-garde Show for the Margento project (poetry performance/action painting/vocal improvisations) at the Fringe Festival, in Buxton, Great Britain. She studied musical art at the universities in Cluj and Bucharest, violin and guitar with her family, which awoke her passion for music. She participated since early childhood at numerous festivals as a composer or interpreter, each time being awarded first prizes and distinctions. Maria Raducanu had many national and international performances, mostly in unconventional locations, being able to easily compete with great jazz musicians from all over the world, due to her vocal strength, intensity and nonconformist style.
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Currently presenter of the news and morning program at Jazz FM and since May 2007 the program director of the radio station, Svetlyo Nikolov has a valuable insight in today’s latest trends in fields such as arts, social matters, business, politics, and sports. His vast work experience consists in positions such as journalist, correspondent, news editor and news presenter at Bulgarian radios. Svetlyo Nikolov’s education in media began early on, starting with the late ‘90s, with a journalism training and work experience at the BBC World Service in London and continued with several journalism and radio management courses in Bulgaria and abroad.
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Renowned musicologist and currently Dean of the “Spiru Haret” University – Music Faculty, Carmen Stoianov is distinguished by a strong and intense professional and research activity, having conducted scientific conferences and communications, national and international symposia, with coordination and guidance for carrying out scientific activities of musicology magazines and books. The concern for the reevaluation of 19th and 20th century Romanian creation, the remarkable scientific work as well as the teaching experience outlines a complex training on multi-cultural directions.
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