AALTO IV: Hold Your Fire

Jyväskylä, Yliopiston juhlasali

Evenings are getting darker. Leaves are falling down. There is early winter in the air.

It its last Aalto Concert this year, the Air Force Big Band will get deep into  this delicate ambiance.

The soloist of the concert, Julia Oschewsky is a singer-song writer whose lyrical and emotional compositions tell stories about longing, encounters and continuous change in life.  In Oschewsky’s music, you can hear echoes of music by Glen Hansard, Joni Mitchell and Leslie Feist; in fact, Julia has named these artists as her inspiration.

Ed Partyka has created a magical ambiance around Julia’s delicate compositions with his ingenious big band arrangements.  The name of the concert Hold Your Fire is the title piece of the fourth album by Julia Oschewsky and Ed Partyka. Ed Partyka will also act as a visiting conductor in the concert.

Ed Partyka is known as a highly competent orchestra conductor and big band skills developer.  He was born in the United States, but has lived almost 30 years in Europe.  Currently, he performs mainly in Austria as a trombonist, composer, arranger and conductor.  Partyka has acted as UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra’ s Artistic Director and Chief Conductor 2020 – 2021.  Ed Partyka will also act as the visiting conductor in the concert.

Ed Partyka who was born in the United States in 1967, but has lived in Europe for almost 30 years, acts currently in Austria as a trombonist, composer, arranger and orchestra conductor. He acted as UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra’s Artistic Director and Chief Conductor in 2020-2021.  Partyka has worked with several important European big bands, including the German hr-BigBand  and the NDR Bigband as well as the Vienna Jazz Orchestra and the Zurich Jazz Orchestra in the capacity of visiting conductor, planner and arranger.  Among others, he has collaborated with Bob Brookmeyer, Carla Bley, Robben Ford and even the Sunrise Avenue, and conducts his own orchestra, the Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra. He works as the Department Chairman of the Jazz Institute of the University of Graz and teaches composition at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne, Switzerland.  Partyka is known as a first-class orchestra leader and developer of orchestral musicianship.

Julia Oschewsky

“A highly motivated singer with interests beyond the world of jazz and a quest for personal vision in music and the performing arts”, that’s how she was once described by Theo Bleckmann (New York based vocal artist) with whom she was working during her semester abroad at the Manhattan School of Music. Born in Mainz/Germany in 1981, grown up in Bingen next to the Rhine river, Julia declared Amsterdam her home base from 2003 till 2016 where she studied Jazz vocals at the Conservatory.

Since her return to Germany in 2016 she is composing, touring, performing and recording for and with several formations such as her acoustic duo “Kleingartenanlage” and of course the Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra. Julias compositions can be described as lyrical, intimate and honest. Sometimes silent, but also pure and powerful, full-blooded in sound, contagious melodies breathing the spirit of a singer-songwriter that has apparently always slumbered inside of her. Inspired by songwriters such as Glen Hansard, Joni Mitchell and Feist Julia tells stories of longing and encounters, stories about the continuous change in life, the past and the familiar.