DENNIS ADU & GLIER ACADEMY BIG BAND

The Big Band of the Department of Jazz Music at the R.M. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music under the direction of Dennis Adu is an orchestra comprised of the finest students of the academy, laureates of national and international competitions. Over the course of its existence, the orchestra has performed at festivals such as “Jazz Horizons,” “Jazz on the Dnieper,” “Koktebel Jazz Fest,” and “Chernihiv Jazz Open.”

The college big band of the R.M. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music began its activity in 1983.

The orchestra has collaborated with A. Sharfman, G. Strilets-Striletskyi, and since 1998, the artistic director of the orchestra has been the Honored Artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Shapoval. Today, the Big Band is led by Denis Yefremenko, a graduate of the R.M. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music.

Since its establishment, the orchestra has performed jazz music programs for residents of Kyiv and the Kyiv region, given concerts at military units, performed for workers and builders of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Slavutych. The collective has been featured on Ukrainian radio and has participated in Ukrainian television broadcasts.

Since 1987, the big band has regularly performed concerts and participated in various prestigious jazz festivals and competitions. The big band is a laureate of the jazz festival “Crystal Lion” (Lviv), a diploma winner of the jazz festivals “Holosiivo-88” and “Autumn Jazz Marathon” (Kyiv).

In 1992 and 1997, the orchestra toured in Germany (Karlsruhe). The renowned jazz pianist John Ferguson (USA) performed with the Big Band. The orchestra has also participated in joint concerts with student big bands from Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany), Slippery Rock (USA), and “IKS big-band” (Germany).

The orchestra actively participates in creative events of the academy: “Shevchenko March,” “Jazz Evenings in Memory of V. Symonenko,” held annually within the framework of the International Festival “Kyiv Summer Music Evenings.”

Since 2001, a new Big Band has been formed based on the faculty of music art of the R.M. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music. It consists of 20 young musicians – graduates of music schools in Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kryvyi Rih, Kherson, Crimea, and Kyiv. The orchestra made its debut at the Ukrainian House, performing various compositions of jazz and popular music styles. The artistic director and conductor of the Big Band is Dennis Adu, a graduate student of the faculty of music art of the R.M. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music.

Dennis Adu is a trumpeter, arranger, composer, and band leader. He is a senior lecturer at the jazz department of the Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music named after R. M. Glier. The main direction of music in which the musician works and composes compositions is mainstream, hard-bop, and neo-bop. He leads his ensembles such as the Big Band, Quintet, and Septet. He collaborates with musicians such as Ku-Umba Frank Lacy, Gregory Porter, Curtis Fuller, Jim Rotondi, Roy and Ofer Assaf, Steve Slagle, Javon Jackson, Larry Willis, Quincy Davis, Dana Hall, Wayne Escoffery Jimmy Bosch, Seamus Blake MLOrchestra, as well as with stars of the Ukrainian show business such as Okean Elzy, Monatik, TNMK, Mad Heads, and others.

The concert program will consist of well-known compositions from the repertoire of orchestras such as the Count Basie Big Band, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Big Phat Band, and others.