KOVIN

14th October at 20:00, Centar za kulturu Kovin
Cara Lazara 85

Concert: Jasna Jovićević & Gabriela Koso (Serbia)
Jasna Jovićević – soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, frula, voice, percussions, bass clarinet, hang, looper
Gabriela Koso – bassoon

The picturesque body of work of Jasna Jovićević, the saxophonist and composer from Subotica, is unparalleled in this region. Education and travel ranging from Hungary through Brazil, Austria, Canada all over to India, where she attended a yoga master course, then back to Serbia and active artistic life in her hometown ‒ all of these are highly indicative of her work. A wider audience met her initially through guest appearances on albums and concerts of the most popular domestic jazz musician Vasil Hadžimanov. As a composer, however, Jasna has been striving towards a different expression for a number of years now, exploring the uncharted territories of alternative sounds and diverse stylistic directions.
Although she played a string of interesting shows with her Improv Kolektiv in 2010, it has been only in the last two or three years that she “stepped on the pedal” and reached full affirmation as a composer and interpreter of her own pieces. Duo Dharma with Armand Mesaroš, a bass player from Subotica, owing to its breadth and attractiveness of expression and instrumentation, put Jasna into focus of many domestic festivals of avant-garde, jazz and world music. This year saw her continue her musical odyssey with bassoonist Gabriel Koso.
In her duo formations, Jasna Jovićević finds a delicate balance between the “avant-garde” and “commercial”, drawing this kind of music closer to a wider audience, without scaring it with pretentiousness and hermetic expression aimed for specified crowds. As far as genres go, Jasna’s music fuses ambient, jazz, electronica, ethno… Expanding the instrumentation to a whole range of wind instruments, vocals and the unusual, melodic percussive instrument called “hung” contributes further to the colourful nature of her artistic expression. In combination with Gabriela Kuso, who comes from the world of classical music, wind instruments are both rhythmical and soloist, while the music of the duo draws near to the ECM aesthetics in the vein of this label’s greats, such as Jan Garbarek or John Surman.