Buchanan Requiem
Reykjavik Jazz Festival
BUCHANAN REQUIEM is a large-scale work which combines elements from the Latin mass for the dead with European choral tradition, Nordic orchestral music and improvisation. With approximately 40 performers the work will be premiered in Iceland at Reykjavík Jazz 2022 in Hallgrímskirkja Church.
Jakob Buchanan was the first jazz student ever to be accepted at soloist class of the Royal Academy of Music Aarhus, Denmark. A position from which he has been able to work closely with familiar artists while also creating unexpected constellations.
Since 2008, Jakob Buchanan has been playing and touring with his quartet for longer periods. Marilyn Mazur (Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Jan Garbarek) and Jakob Bro have been members of the Jakob Buchanan Quartet from the beginning. Bassist Jonas Westergaard replaces pianist Simon Toldam on the latest quartet album ,,Some People & Some Places”. The album was nominated in two categories at the Danish Music Awards 2014: Jazz Album of the Year, and Jazz Composer of the Year.
Buchanan Requiem 2015 won 2 Danish Music Awards for best Jazz album of the year and Composer of the year.
Perfomers:
Reykjavík Big Band (IS)
Choir: Club for Five (FI), Ensemble Edge (DK) and Cantoque Ensemble (IS)
Soloists:
Ragnheiður Gröndal (IS) : vocals
Hilmar Jensson (IS) : guitar
Anders Jormin (SE) : bass
Magnús Trygvason Eliassen (IS) : percussion
Jakob Buchanan (DK) : trumpet
Conductor: Geir Lysne (NO)
The project is supported by Culture Point.
“Danish trumpeter Jakob Buchanan also has a background in modern jazz and his large-scale work Requiem combines big band music, choral music, modern jazz and classical tones into a sweeping musical statement that enters the realm of spirituality. On the opening, “Requiem Aeternam,” Buchanan’s trumpet breaks through the silence like a glowing light in the dark before an organ intones with multiple brass voices in the background. Then a choir of Latin voices rise from out of nowhere and the composition grows into an understated bass-driven groove[…]”
– Jakob Baekgaard (All About Jazz)
Other press quotes:
GAFFA: “This is, without doubt, one of this decades most important jazz releases, a true masterpiece!”
POLITIKEN – An eminently impressive contribution to new Danish music and an obvious candidate for the Nordic Council Music Prize.
– Would it be too much to describe this as a significant contribution to Danish culture!
INFORMATION – The CD is full of exquisite moments and beautiful details in the course of the pieces’ eighty minutes, where we are wrapped in the soothing ambiance of the chorus, which at times seems instrumental, Jakob Bro’s lyrical guitar playing, which fits in well with the main sound-picture, with Marylin Mazur’s orientalism on all kinds of percussion instruments and, not least, Jakob Buchanan’s “rainy-day” blue and moving flugelhorn playing.
JAZZ NYT –Jakob Buchanan has crowned an already great musical carrier with a masterpiece, in a class of its own in Danish jazz.
–Buchanan plays possibly better than ever on both trumpet and flugelhorn.
–This is not just a highly recommended release. It’s one of this years greatest jazz releases.
ALL ABOUT JAZZ “In every way, including the length, which clocks in at around 78 minutes, Requiem is a major work and, hopefully, it will put more spotlight on Buchanan. He shows himself as an ambitious and thoughtful composer who draws on the music of the past and brings the form of the requiem into the future.”