S. Gripoix

Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ) – Rituels

Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ) was founded in 1986 under the auspices of the French Ministry of Culture. More than 180 musicians from France and the rest of the world have passed through ONJ under the leadership of 11 artistic directors. The ensemble has achieved remarkable results in the institutional and cultural legitimization of jazz – they presented a wide array of new creative works in France and around the globe, releasing 30 albums to date. Belgrade has hosted the orchestra several times: the last time was twelve years ago at the Belgrade Jazz Festival when they presented an original rendition of Robert Wyatt's work in the Kolarac Hall. 

Since 2019, the orchestra has been under the leadership of guitarist and composer Frédéric Maurin, presenting four projects so far: a new look on Ornette Coleman's music Dancing in Your Head(s), the Dracula program dedicated to a younger audience, the Ex Machina project with alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, exploring the interaction between the living musicians and machines in real-time, and the Rituels program – an original work by five French composers (Frédéric Maurin, Ellinoa, Sylvaine Hélary, Leïla Martial and Grégoire Letouvet), for thirteen instrumentalists and four voices, scheduled for the Belgrade Jazz festival, too. For Maurin, fascinated by spectral structures and sonic illusions, music is a sensitive surface that should allow each listener access to their imagination. In the Rituels program the voice is the primary, intimate vector of everything human, along with imagination and spirituality. The program is built around everyday rituals: diverse poetic soundscapes evoking time as an infinite return.

https://www.onj.org/en/