The “First Lady of Song” with her unmistakable, eternally youthful voice is considered one of the most important jazz singers of all time. At 17, she won an amateur competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and was hired by Chick Webb for his orchestra shortly afterwards. With her positive charisma and musical skills, especially […]

Ed Partyka and Theo Bleckmann have worked together since 2007 on several projects in Germany and Finland, and since Theo is the new jazz vocal teacher at the ZHDK, it seemed only natural that a collaboration with the ZJO should take place. This was originally supposed to happen last season, but an unfortunate illness kept […]

Big Band musicians world-wide were saddened by death of master composer and arranger Bill Holman on May 6th, 2024, at the age of 97. His long and productive career spanned seven decades and produced hundreds of compositions and arrangements that have become well-loved core repertoire of big bands and their audiences world-wide. The last time […]

Zurich Jazz Orchestra featuring Sandy Patton (voc) In 2024, we will be celebrating the centenary of the birth of Sarah Vaughan, one of the greatest jazz singers in history. Her career spanned almost five decades and she performed with a variety of top jazz musicians and big bands. She won two Grammy Awards and was […]

Klaus Henner Russius reads E. T. A. Hoffmanns «Das Märchen vom Nussknacker» With his ballet “The Nutcracker”, Tchaikovsky did not compose pure Christmas music, but a particularly fitting soundtrack to a danced story full of Christmas magic. An army of mice can be put to flight with an exterminator. Or with an army of tin […]

Dave Taylor has been the world’s most influential bass trombonist since he emerged on the New York music scene in the late 1960s. If you’re not a brass player, you may never have heard his name, but you’ve certainly heard his playing. Dave Taylor’s distinctive bass trombone sound can be heard on hundreds of albums, […]

30 years Jazzclub Thalwil The Thalwil Jazz Club is 30 years old. It is therefore fitting that the Zurich Jazz Orchestra has been planning a no less impressive anniversary for some time: Sarah Vaughan, who was born in 1924, would have turned 100 this year. 1924 was a good year for jazz: Sammy Nestico was […]

«Female Composers»-Series Some time ago, the ZJO launched the “Female Composers” series. This October, composer and pianist Nikki Iles will be visiting the Zurich Jazz Orchestra. “Iles is one of the most refreshing personalities to emerge on the British jazz scene in recent times, with a fluid sound and a supple, quirky phrasing as an […]

A Duke Ellington best-of program In recent years, the Zurich Jazz Orchestra has specialized in the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and performed the original arrangements of the albums “Far East Suite”, “Such Sweet Thunder”, “The Nutcracker” and “And His Mother Called Him Bill”. Now the time has come and we present a […]

When we played the “Far East Suite” at the Kulturmarkt a year ago in June, the interest was huge. So we promised then that we would come back with a new Ellington program. We are now making good on that promise – with a program that we have never played before. “Billy Strayhorn was my […]