site.btaBansko Jazz Festival Welcomes Meltem Ege Quartet on Friday

On Friday night the World Stage at the Bansko Jazz Festival welcomed  Meltem Ege and her quartet, which includes well-known names from the Turkish jazz scene – Ozan Musluoglu (double bass), Onder Focan (guitar), and Serkan Alagok (drums).

The Turkish quartet performed original music from their 2011 album, as well as from Ege’s newest album, released just three months ago.

One of the surprises for the audience was swing performed in Turkish. At a press conference in Bansko, the singer noted that swing is not so easy to perform in Turkish without losing the specifics of the language. Despite the difficulty, however, the jazz vocalist manages to beautifully weave music and language together.

Meltem Ege met Yonder Focan in 2006 when Focan held a competition for young performers at his jazz club. Ege won this competition, which led to funding to participate in contests in Finland and Lithuania, where she also won first prizes. Alongside her music career, Ege is a professor at the California Institute of the Arts in the USA.

"World Stage" is the newest project of the Bansko Jazz Festival, organized by the Municipality of Bansko and the Association of Festivals in Bulgaria. Every festival evening at 7 pm, musicians from various parts of the world take to the stage in the city park of Bansko.

BTA is a media partner of the Bansko Jazz Festival.