Erasmus+ BIP - Jazz Intensive: Combos, Masterclasses, Career Development

Objectives: 

The BIP aims to explore arrangement of jazz repertoire in a combo setting as well as provide a career intensive session by leading professionals, fostering creativity, improvisation, and collaboration. Participants will develop a deeper understanding of jazz combo playing and repertoire, enhance their performance skills, develop a career plan, and engage in intercultural musical exchange. The programme encourages students to explore new collaboration techniques and focus on their career goals.

Description: 

This intensive week-long program offers, after an initial online session, in-person sessions, bringing together students and faculty from different musical backgrounds. Through masterclasses, ensemble work, career sessions, and improvisation workshops, participants will develop arrangements in a combo setting. The week culminates in a collaborative performance, showcasing innovative musical interpretations. 

There will be two highlights for interested parties who want to see the results of the programme. First of all, the final concert on Friday the 4th of July (5PM CET). The concert will be available via livestream worldwide and free of charge. (LINK Livestream) Another highlight is the "Talking Jazz" panel discussion with JMLU vice rector Monika Herzig on Thursday, 3rd of July (4:30PM-5:30 PM CET) Find the info here: TALKING JAZZ Event info. PLUS: There will also be a livestream for free. Find the stream here: https://www.jammusicstage.com/en/livestreams/talking-jazz-live-with-st.-louis-college-of-music-rome-faculty-marta-capponi-federica-michisanti-and-emiliano-caroselli

Methods: 

The programme combines lectures, masterclasses, ensemble coaching, and improvisation workshops. The online session provides foundational knowledge, while in-person activities focus on hands-on learning, collaborating and performances. Peer feedback and mentorship enhance artistic growth.

Outcomes: 

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of jazz arranging for combos, improve their improvisation and ensemble skills, set career goals, and explore innovative composition techniques. They will develop confidence in collaboration, expand their professional network, and showcase their progress in a final performance.

Virtual Component: 

Before the Blended Intensive Programme begins, a mandatory virtual session will be held via Zoom. During this meeting, participants will receive an overview of the BIP schedule, discuss preparatory tasks, and review essential materials such as sheet music and assigned pieces. Group formations will also be finalized, ensuring everyone is well-prepared for the in-person sessions. This component helps establish a smooth and productive start to the programme. 

The complete programme can be downloaded here: DOWNLOAD programme

Participating institutions:

The following institutions (staff and students) will participate:

JAM MUSIC LAB Private University Vienna

Saint Louis College Rome, Italy

Conservatorio Superior de Música de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain 

Tutors:

These tutors will be representing the three participating institutions:

Monika Herzig - Artistic Research and Piano (JAM MUSIC LAB Private University)

In 1987, the pedagogical institute in Weingarten, Germany awarded a scholarship for a one-year exchange programme at the University of Alabama to one of their students, jazz pianist Monika Herzig. Together with her partner and guitarist Peter Kienle, she arrived in the States on a one-way ticket, with one suitcase of belongings and one guitar in August 1988.

Since then she has completed her Doctorate in Music Education and Jazz Studies at Indiana University, where she taught for three decades. She is the author of David Baker – A Legacy in Music, published in 2011 by IU Press,  Experiencing Chick Corea with Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, co-editor of Jazz and Gender (Routledge, 2022) and the previous editor of Jazz Education in Research and Practice (IU Press). Currently she is Professor of Artistic Research at the Jam Music Lab Private University, Vienna. She is the host of Talking Jazz, a radio programme/ podcast broadcast weekly on WICR and WETF, as well as on podcast services and youtube.

 As a touring jazz artist, she has performed at many prestigious jazz clubs and festivals, such as the Canaris Mas Jazz Festival, Jazz Tales Festival, Women in Jazz Festival, Indy Jazz Fest, , the W.C.Handy Festival, to name just a few. Groups under her leadership have toured the US, Europe, and Japan, opened for acts such as Tower of Power, Sting, the Dixie Dregs, Yes, and more.

She has released more than a dozen CDs under her leadership on her own ACME Records as well as Owl Studios, Whaling City Sound, Jazz Urbane, and Savant.  Her awards include a 1994 Down Beat Magazine Award for Best Original Song, a Jazz Journalist Association Hero 2015 award, as well as grants from the NEA, the Indiana Arts Commission, MEIEA, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Chamber Music America, Indiana University, among others. Her project “SHEROES” (Whaling City Sound, Savant) features the world’s leading female jazz instrumentalists including Leni Stern, Jamie Baum, Jennifer Vincent, Rosa Avila, Mayra Casales, Reut Regev, Ada Rovatti, and Ingrid Jensen and was featured on NPR’s Here and Now as well as cited as one of the best releases of 2018 in DownBeat Magazine, placing #31 on the year-end Jazz Week Charts. Thomas Garner from Garageradio.com writes, “I was totally awed by the fine musicianship throughout”

Marta Capponi - vocals (Saint Louis College Rome, Italy)

Marta Capponi began her musical journey when she was only 12 years old having already clear that she would make it her profession and her reason for living. She studies with Maria Pia De Vito, Mark Murphy, Carl Anderson, Norma Winston, Paolo Fresu, Salvatore Bonafede, Roberta Gambarini.

This experience allows her to approach the study of Jazz singing which becomes for Marta an inexhaustible source of inspiration and her stylistic figure. In 2012, after numerous experiences in important Jazz Festivals and Clubs, she moved to London to open a new artistic, creative parenthesis and get involved in a new place.

There comes artistic recognition and important collaborations from the British music scene, such as Cleveland Watkiss, Antonio Forcione, Gilad Atzmon, Ross Stanley, Femi Temowo and many others, Marta Capponi enjoys a deep musical and technical knowledge that allows her to move with ease between genres as diverse as traditional jazz, contemporary jazz, her original compositions straddling jazz, folk and pop, passing through the wonderful universe of Brazilian music and landing in improvised music.

Improvisation is an essential and indispensable element for the vocalist. This is how in 2018 she begins with her husband and important drummer of the Italian and then English stage, Emiliano Caroselli, a new project of improvised music in duo, voice and drums, which is called NuCleUs, and that will soon see the light with a new album.

Meanwhile Marta is working on her new album of songs called Shaking the Blue that will be released in autumn 2025.

Emiliano Caroselli - JAZZ DRUMS (Saint Louis College Rome, Italy)

Emiliano Caroselli began studying drums at the age of 17 with Maestro Cristiano Micalizzi, becoming passionate about jazz drums. In 1998 he began his studies at the E.N.A. Havana National Art Institute in Cuba, where he graduated in 2001. Back in Rome, he enrolled at the Saint Louis College of Music to further his jazz studies, studying with Maestro Claudio Mastracci.

He began numerous collaborations with musicians from the Roman scene, most notably JuJu 4et with whom he recorded an album “Tempi Provvisori” with Rosario Giuliani as a special guest. In the meantime, he continued his jazz studies at the L. Refice Conservatory in Frosinone and solidified important collaborations as a sideman.

Emiliano Caroselli in 2012 moved to London where his training, his so sensitive and passionate approach to the drums led him in a short time to become a leading figure in the English jazz scene. His readiness on any kind of style and repertoire, combined with a deep knowledge of jazz roots, his attention to dynamics and color, and his keen interplay with other musicians lead him to be one of the most sought-after drummers in the London scene.

Federica Michisanti - bassist and double bass player (Saint Louis College Rome, Italy)

Michisant studied in Rome at Università della Musica, Saint Louis College of Music and at the Siena Jazz and Città di Castello workshops. She also studied classical music with Maestro Andrea Pighi.  She has recorded five albums as leader with her projects Trioness (with Simone Maggio and Matt Renzi) and Horn trio (with Francesco Lento and Francesco Bigoni)

Her last album, entitled “Afternoons”, was released in September 2023, recorded together with Louis Sclavis, with whom she has been collaborating steadily for some years now, Vincent Courtois and Michele Rabbia.  The last two albums were produced by Parco della Musica Records. 

She participated in prestigious Italian and international festivals with her projects. She has played with Enrico Pieranunzi, with whom she collaborates in a duo. In 2022/2023 she was part of Ornella Vanoni's Tour "Le donne e la Musica". In 2021 she played in the European tour with the Dave Douglas and Franco D'Andrea quartet, with Dan Weiss on drums.

She plays with Dominique Pifarèly, with Nicolas Masson, who is now part of his project Trioness and she played with Bob Moses and Greg Burk in their project “Benign madness, profound gladness”, an album released in 2019. She also has a project with a string quartet, “Life on Art string quartet” that performs a repertoire of her own composition.

She was part of the national orchestra of young talents directed by Paolo Damiani. In April 2016 she participated in the recording of the album Omaggio a Janis Joplin - Jazz Corner, Jazz Italiano live at the Casa del Jazz which also contains a piece co-signed by her. Teacher at the St Louis College of Music in Rome, for whose label Camilla records she has also recorded an album with pianist Amedeo Tommasi. Teacher at the summer masterclasses of Merano Jazz Accademy in 2023 and 2024.

She won the Top jazz 2018 as best new Italian talent. In 2019 he won the Siae special award for the originality of his compositional research, after which he played with his trio with guest Louis Sclavis.