Blazin' Quartet, a multinational band, will be the star of the next concert in the jazz season at the Romanian Athenaeum. The event will take place on Monday, April 14th, in the Small Hall of the Athenaeum, starting at 7:00 PM. For more details about Blazin' Quartet, Viorel Grecu spoke with the band's leader, drummer Srdjan Ivanovic.

Please introduce the band. You're four musicians from four different countries.

We have Mihail Ivanov, a bassist from Bulgaria, Federico Casagrande, a guitarist from Italy who lives in France, Andreas Polyzogopoulos, a trumpeter from Greece, and I'm Srdjan Ivanovic, a drummer originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the former Yugoslavia, but I now live in France.

But you grew up in Greece.

Yes, when the war in Bosnia started, my father moved to Greece and took me with him. So I grew up there, and now we're touring in Greece, so it feels like home.

How did you meet? How long have you been playing together?

The band has actually existed for 17 years, but the lineup has changed. At first, we were all in Amsterdam, and I was living there. Aside from me, the only original member left is bassist Mihail Ivanov. We won the Dutch Jazz Competition, the most important jazz competition in the Netherlands. The prize was a recording contract and a national tour. We made two albums for Challenge Records. After that, I moved to France and couldn't keep the same lineup. I started working with trumpeter Andreas Polyzogopoulos, who was living in Paris. I kept Mihail Ivanov, who joins us for concerts. I also met Federico Casagrande in Paris, a great guitarist. I recorded an album with them called Sleeping Beauty. We released it at the beginning of the pandemic, so we didn't really get a chance to perform it live. But now we've reunited to play that music, as well as new compositions I wrote for this tour.

What's Sleeping Beauty about? Is it a suite, a concept album? What inspired you?

It's not exactly a concept album, but it kind of became one. The compositions are mine, but also include pieces by Ennio Morricone. The title refers to beautiful things we often don't notice, but when someone turns them into music, it enlightens us and helps us see what's beautiful about them. There's a sleeping beauty in everything.

You have a concert at the Romanian Athenaeum on Monday, September 14th, at 7:00 PM, and the day before you'll be performing in Brașov, at the Apollonia Cultural Center, at the same time. What should the Romanian audience expect from you?

Our music is contemporary jazz with Balkan influences, with a lot of interaction between the band members. We try to go from a very calm mood to explosive music. We're excited to perform in Romania-we know it's a beautiful hall at the Athenaeum, so we can't wait.