develop

2 months, 10 countries and 45 bands after the first call for entries, we have officially closed our first European Swing Music Contest.

Thanks to all the participants!

The results will be comunicated as soon as possible.

The European Swing Music Contest is about to end!

On October 31th the call for entries will close and our jury will begin to choose the 4 winning bands that will perform in Festival Marckolswing (France), Seville Swing Festival (Spain), Sofia Swing (Bulgaria) and Swing on the Beach (Italy).

You still have time to apply: click here to read the terms and conditions.

We are glad to announce the firsts confirmed dates for next edition of our festivals:

Marckolswing: 21/03/2019 – 23/03/2019. Check the event!

Sevilla Swing!: 04/04/2019 – 07/04/2019. Check the event!

Sofia Swing Dance Festival: 30/05/2019 – 02/06/2019. Check the event!

A beautiful image gallery of the four festivals behind Swinging Europe.

Ladies and gentlemen, the seventh edition of the Swing on the Beach Festival is enhanced by the presence of Her Majesty the “Queen of Swing”, Miss Norma Miller!

Another event that will remain memorable thanks to this artist with 80 years of career on his shoulders! The icon of Lindy Hop, the last witness of the grandeur of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, the most famous Swing dance group in the world; witness both of events that are found in books and of others that we will never find in any text. His life during the Swing Craze, in contact with artists called Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr, Frankie Manning, in well-known locations like the Savoy, the Apollo Theater; Harlem, Las Vegas, Vietnam, in short, History in person!

Norma Miller will present her new compositions and music together with Billy Bros. Swing Orchestra, her official group, recorded in the Cd “A Swingin’Love Fest” and being published in the upcoming one “Swingin’ at the Savoy”.

Sofia Swing Dance Festival is here!

Parties: Crazy Social Night (Pre-party), Thursday Welcome & Sunday Farewell, Friday Fury & Saturday Madness

Competitions: Open Jack & Jill, Аdvanced Jack & Jill, Open Strictly Lindy Hop, Swing Out Drop Out

Bands: Heart of Dixie, Carolina Reapers Swing.

Check the full schedule here: https://sofiaswing.com/schedule/

Friday 6th of April– h 21 – Teatro Alameda, Seville

Adrien Moignard is undoubtedly one of the most important musicians worldwide of the gypsy jazz stage. He belongs to the elite of the last and most recent generation of young musicians inherited from the musical legacy of Django Reinhart and Stefane Grapelli. Inspired not only by the aforementioned geniuses and founders of the style, is also influenced by later musicians who are a reference of gypsy jazz and who have managed to modernize and take it to a new level, as Bireli Lagrene, Stochelo Rosenberg or Angelo Debarre.
Moignard is above all a born improviser, a virtuoso guitarist endowed with a dazzling creativity and musicality. He manages to synthesize in his instrument all the beauty of the traditional language of swing with melodic and harmonic elements of an absolute contemporaneity, and in a natural and spontaneous way.

Like other well-known contemporaries of him (Sebastien Gineaux, Benoit Convert, Noé Reinhardt, Gonzalo Bergara, etc.), this young French guitarist begun to have contacts with well recognized musicians in the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, attending and participating in the famous festival Django Reinhardt by Samois Sur Seine – the most important event of the style, something like the “Mecca” of gypsy jazz.

Since then he has recorded several albums as a soloist and many others, forming part of groups of artists from different musical styles. The critics have highlighted their album as Classic, a trio with Gonzalo Bergara and Jeremie Arranger, or their participation in the very interesting Selmer 607 record project, which brings together many of the most outstanding artists of the new jazz stage.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V21zwDXcjo

Friday 6th of April – h 21 – Teatro Alameda, Seville

Heart of Dixie is a young swing band from Brno, Czech Republic, which seems tailored to the lindy hop dance community. Their repertoire is a mix of old school dixieland and heavy big band hits, mixed with modern pop songs with swing arrangements. The majority of its members are students of the jazz department of the prestigious Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno.
The classical dixieland band formation (trumpet, clarinet, trombone, guitar, double bass and drums) can lead to deception: with his excellent singing skills and his background in academic jazz, they move with ease in the tradition that encompasses 20’s to 40’s.

The group specializes in vintage parties, social dance events and lindy hop festivals. In recent years they have visited multiple events in Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and other European countries.

In some words, they are a group of boys with great energy and deep passion for swing music. For this reason they always guarantee to turn each concert into an unforgettable night.

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/HeartOfDixieBrno/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Vi5LJb3o0

Friday 6th of April – h 20.30 – Salle de fêtes, Marckolsheim

After three years of touring through different festivals, venues and events, and with an already consolidated sound, Très Bien! presented in 2017 their new disc that brings even more uniqueness to a repertoire designed to enjoy their audition. With Très Bien! the audience are hopelessly destined to enjoy some original themes by these Sevillian “authors”, and also from well known classical themes but with a very different perspective from the common ones, as well as more that are unknown to the public, but worthy played due to their great beauty . In a few words, a fresh show, rhythmic, spontaneous, fun, carefully prepared and at the same time improvised.

Tres Bien! Were born in early 2013 after the union of three musicians-Matías Comino, Luis Berraquero and Paula Padilla, who decided to combine in their own acoustic way musical themes as versions of the North American and French of the first half of the 20th century; with a flavor of the authentic European jazz style created by the great guitarist of gypsy swing Django Reinhardt and his group. After a year in trio format, they decided to have Daniel Gonzalez on the double bass, a regular musician in the Seville jazz scene who became a consolidated member of the band and with whom they made their recording in the Sputnik studios in Seville. Their first album, entitled “Soleil Swing”, was recorded on 13 and 14 January 2014, live and in the old style, with the four musicians playing at the same time same room. More recently, they included the violinist Miguel Romero, who had already played and recorded on different occasions with O Sister! demonstrating his talent and taste for swing music and completing a unique quintet of strings (two guitars, double bass, violin and ukulele) conducted live by the solo voice of Paula Padilla

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/tresbienswing/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BonQcDuq6LE

Friday 6th of April – h 20.30 – Salle de fêtes, Marckolsheim

Is a synonym for authentic interpretation of popular music of the swing era. Their variegated repertory includes a broad spectrum of attractive tunes, sweet and hot, ranging from Hollywood musicals to big band’s top swing members. A concert is more than that; it is a show designed in the minutest detail to emulate the typical manners of those times, complete with the customs and hairdos, and rounded off the overall direction of the performance.

Since his student years, this entertainer, generously endowed with versatile talents, has lived only for Jazz and Swing of the period between the wars. Ondrej Havelka graduated from the Drama School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (major subject acting) and from the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (direction). Having left the drama school, he spent six years in Studio Ypsilon, a theater in Prague. He soon appeared on the cast of films and television plays.

Ondrej has been deeply involved with singing, dancing and tapping jazz and popular music of the 1920’s and 1930’s since the time he was a young student. In the role of the scriptwriter, singer and director, he recorded a series of the three clips in 1995. One of them won the 1995 Czech Grammy award as the Clip of the Year. Also in 1995, Ondrej started his own swing band, Melody Makers, and has been performing with it since.

Webpage: http://www.melodymakers.cz/
FB page: https://www.facebook.com/OndrejHavelkaAndHisMelodyMakers/