The Jazz in Church Festival, hosted by the Lutheran Church in Bucharest, is celebrating its 10^th edition this year, kicking off this very evening. For more details about Jazz in Church and its prestigious guests, we have Cristian Moraru, the festival's artistic director, joining us by phone. Welcome to Radio România Muzical.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.

It's been a decade since you started organizing Jazz in Church, a rather unique festival - especially for Romania. For those who may not yet be familiar with its special character, could you tell us a bit about it?

Actually, I think we marked the 10-year anniversary about three years ago, but the pandemic unfortunately interrupted things.So this is our 10^th edition. The first one was, I believe, in 2013.The festival is one of a kind in our cultural landscape.Its origins are quite interesting - about 14 years ago, I had the opportunity to invite an incredible trio at the time: featuringas the headliner wasthe great Norwegian drummer Jon Christensen, who was able to come to Romania along with the now well-known Danish guitarist Jakob Bro,and the wonderful American bassist Thomas Morgan.That was the first time I organized a concert in a church, and during the performance, I had the idea to create a festival. The space was incredibly inspiring - not only does it offer a beautiful visual atmosphere, but the acoustics are wonderful, creating a complete experience.So, one year after that concert, the Jazz in Church Festival was born - a truly ambitious and challenging project.It's really the result of a group of passionate people, because organizing such an event independently is extremely challenging.We receive no support from the Romanian government, so we have to seek out partners from the corporate and business sectors, as well as embassies.It's an expensive festival, and ticketsareextremely limited.But we've worked hard on it every year, and here we are now, launching the 10^th edition this evening.

This year's guests are once again top-tier - some of them, I believe, have even performed in past editions. Could you walk us through who's coming to Jazz in Church starting tonight?

A new feature of this edition is that we've dedicated Thursday to two groups we see as among the most promising on the European scene - both have already received awards. First, we have a duo featuring a pianist from Mongolia who has lived in Berlin for many years. She's already received several accolades and is considered one of the great up-and-coming names in European jazz.Her name is Shuteen Erdenebaatar, and she'll be joined by another young but extremely talented musician, Nils Kugelmann. What's particularly interesting about Kugelmann is that he'll accompany Shuteen on an instrument rarely seen in Romania - the contra-alto clarinet.They're also a couple off-stage, something that suggests we can expect a beautiful and cohesive performance. The second concert on Thursday features Fergus McCreadie, a pianist from Scotland who's also highly acclaimed.He'll be performing with his trio in a set that blends Scottish folk influences with contemporary jazz.As for returning musicians, one of them is a regular guest whom I consider the best European percussionist for quite some time now - Michele Rabbia. He'll be performing in a world premiere concert alongside Arve Henriksen, a well-known Norwegian trumpeter who also performed here two years ago with Trio Mediaeval.The second concert on Friday features the renowned Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch, joined by Tania Giannouli, one of the most important pianists in Greece right now.On Saturday, we'll have Vlad Năstase, who is also the organist of the Lutheran Church. He'll be performing on an 18^th-century organ that was brought in from an abandoned church in Transylvania - a true gem of an instrument.Following that, we'll have the most important jazz musician from Argentina, Javier Girotto, who's been living in Rome for 30 years. He'll present an effervescent jazz-tango performance together with four top-class Italian musicians.On the final day, Sunday, the first concert is by the Charlotte Reinhardt Trio. Charlotte is the great-granddaughter of Django Reinhardt. Interestingly, she doesn't play manouche jazz, but rather contemporary jazz with a strong focus on improvisation.It's a cinematic project featuring piano, cello, and drums.The closing concert will be, in my opinion, held by the best trio currently active in the UK - Ill Considered. Their performance will be 100% improvised, entirely spontaneous.