On June 4th the Vilnius Festival presents its audience with an opportunity to listen to jazz arrangements and original compositions for big band performed by well-known masters of the jazz scene. At 7 pm, the National Philharmonic Hall welcomes the internationally acclaimed Brussels Jazz Orchestra.

The Brussels Jazz Orchestra (BJO) is among the most famous collectives of the genre on the European jazz scene, recently rated by the Down Beat magazine among ten best big bands of the world. It is not the kind of a collective that sticks to standards. Rather it is an orchestra performing original music, creating unique arrangements and playing inventively as well as passionately.

The orchestra was founded in 1993 by three Belgian jazz stars – Frank Vaganée, Serge Plume and Marc Godfroid. The orchestra gave its first performances in Brussels at The Sound Jazz Club, where it held weekly sessions. The BJO has played at all major jazz venues in Belgium and earned recognition in Europe and the US. It often appears with the Belgian jazz stars, classical music collectives (like Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra and Flemish Radio Choir) and participates in theatre productions. The orchestra collaborates with internationally renowned musicians and has performed together with the likes of Dave Liebman, Dave Douglas, McCoy Tyner, Gianluigi Trovesi, Gustavo Bergalli, Norma Winstone, Maria João and Richard Galliano.

The orchestra’s current artistic leader is one of its founding members, composer and saxophonist Frank Vaganée. Born in Mechelen, Belgium, in 1966, he started off with classical music studies at the Conservatory in Mechelen and the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp (1974–1985). Later he took up jazz improvisation classes the American jazz saxophone player John Ruocco in the Jazz Studio (1983–1986) in Antwerp. In 1998, he left Belgium for three months to study in New York. Between 1993 and 1995, he studied composing and arranging with Bob Brookmeyer.

He is currently a member of The Acoustics and the Nathalie Loriers Trio & Extensions and participates in a variety of other groups and projects as a freelance musician. In 1991, he was nominated by the Belgian press as the Best young talent of jazz and in 1993 was awarded the CERA/Jeugd en Muziek Prijs. In 1994, he won the Prix Nicolas d'Or with the BJO and the very important Django d'Or.

For its concert programme in Vilnius, the big band has selected pieces from its “Finest” collection. It is one of the most recent and powerful programmes devised by the orchestra to reveal its diverse possibilities, consisting of original compositions by BJO musicians, arranged by BJO musicians, with contributions from the orchestra’s long-term member, trumpeter and composer Bert Joris.

The appearance of the Brussels Jazz Orchestra at the Vilnius Festival 2010 is organised with the support of the Flemish authorities.