site.btaBansko Jazz Festival to Feature International Jazz Projects with Bulgarian Participation

This year’s edition of the Bansko Jazz Festival will present two impressive projects with the participation of Bulgarian musicians Peter Slavov and Hristo Vitchev, the organizers announced.

Traditionally, the festival attracts Bulgarian musicians who have managed to make a name for themselves in some of the most prestigious jazz venues around the world, such as New York, Boston and San Francisco.

On August 8, the main stage of the Bansko Jazz Festival will feature a sensation in the world of music, Yoyoka Soma, who is 15 years old and lives in Los Angeles, but was born in Japan, and has been playing the drums since she was one year old. At the age of eight, she made her own cover of Led Zeppelin's Good Times, Bad Times, which impressed Robert Plant himself, according to the organizers.

In 2024, her album For Teen was released, on which Yoyoka worked with multiple Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer Narada Michael Walden, as well as musicians from Jamiroquai and bassist Marco Mendoza. She is the youngest drummer in history to be included in the 500 greatest drummers of all time. She has played with Fall Out Boys, Cyndi Lauper, and Jack Black.

She is coming to the Bansko Jazz Festival with the band of bassist and guitarist Noriyuki “Ken” Okada. He moved from Tokyo to San Jose and in 2022 formed his own band, inviting saxophonist Ben Torres (who has a Grammy in his music collection) and Hristo Vitchev, a Bulgarian guitarist who has made a career on the West Coast of the United States and was part of the Bansko Jazz Festival in 2022 with JP3.

Two legendary saxophonists will close the festival in Bansko on August 10 with a quintet that includes double bassist Peter Slavov, who has been an integral part of the New York jazz scene for years, according to the festival organizers.

Jerry Bergonzi has recorded nine albums with Dave Brubeck, who joined him in the 1970s and gradually went from being a favourite guest saxophonist to a mainstay in the famous Dave Brubeck Quartet. Today, Bergonzi teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

George Garzone was born in Boston, studied at Berklee (where he later taught), and since 1972 has been part of the longest-running experimental jazz trio, The Fringe, which continues to play regularly at top venues in New York and Boston. Garzone is one of the nine exceptional musicians in Joe Lovano's Grammy-winning nonet. He has played with Danilo Perez, Jack DeJohnette, Peter Erskine, and Joe Patitucci.

Bergonzi and Garzone will present a special programme in Bansko with their quintet, which includes pianist Luis Pardo, also a teacher at Berklee, Grammy winner with the Miguel Zenon Quartet, and drum icon Ben Perowsky.

Peter Slavov has played with these magnificent musicians in New York and Boston, and now in Bansko. He has been living in the United States since 2006, studying on a scholarship at Berklee, where he now teaches. He has participated in Grammy-nominated and award-winning projects with musicians such as Quincy Jones and Joe Lovano, Chucho Valdes, Alfredo Rodriguez and Danilo Perez.

The Bansko Jazz Festival takes place from August 1 to 10, and in 2025 it will occupy three stages for the first time. Admission is free, only the seats in front of the main stage require tickets.

The Bansko Jazz Festival is organized by the Festivals in Bulgaria Association with the support of the Municipality of Bansko and the Ministry of Culture.