Founded in 2010, 2020 sees two important milestones for GeraJazz, with Orquestra Geração's jazz programme celebrating both its 10th anniversary and the formulation of its first dedicated school programme.
How did GeraJazz come about?
This unique, jazz-focused Sistema project developed out of brass classes at Amadora's Miguel Torga school. And, the current GeraJazz coordinator and former coordinator of Orquestra Geração's brass tuition, Eduardo Lála, told us how it all began with some modest end-of-class experimentation. While teaching brass sessions, he used to like to conclude classes by mixing things up a little and bringing in different styles, and, gradually, one thing led to another as a preference emerged amongst the young musicians in attendance:
...always at the end, I did something different, something fun, with a different feeling, a different approach. And, they always wanted to do more: more jazz. And, when I showed them something from Miles Davis or about jazz history, they wanted more and more and more. So, we started to do more and, at a certain point [in time], we formalised GeraJazz.
Eduardo Lála – GeraJazz Coordinator
Developing from the young musicians' desires and enthusiasm, GeraJazz quickly spread across Orquestra Geração programmes and grew to become a group of some 30 teenagers and young adults from throughout the Greater Lisbon area.
Making a name for itself
As in all Sistema groups, there has been a focus on live performance at GeraJazz and this has seen the players become a fixture in the local jazz scene, with GeraJazz ensembles taking to the stage at events and locations such as the Ciclo de Jazz da Amadora, the Teatro Municipal São Luiz and the BB Blues Festival.
Watch GeraJazz play at the 3rd Ciclo de Jazz da Amadora (2013)
New opportunities through diverse collaborations
Partnerships have also played a key role in GeraJazz's development, with wide-ranging arrangements with the Hot Clube de Portugal, BNP Paribas, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa - SBE and numerous teaching artists expanding the possibilities on offer for the programme's young musicians.
Over the course of several years, GeraJazz worked together with the Hot Clube de Portugal and teachers from its renowned jazz music school (a founding member of the IASJ) to provide intensive workshops and playing opportunities for its young musicians. As its musicians developed, GeraJazz later adapted this approach to bring in selected international teaching artists for intensive master classes with a focus on diverse playing styles and improvisation techniques. This approach has continued to be a mainstay of the programme's teaching throughout the pandemic and has seen high profile artists such as the saxophonist, Ricardo Toscano, join the GeraJazz musicians for webinars.
I can proudly say that I collaborated in various ways with the Orquestra Geração. As a teacher, in the GeraJazz programme and, as a colleague, in several concerts with young musicians who begin their careers in the orchestra. ...Orquestra Geração is the perfect example of a project that works and that bears fruit. I can only say that it is one of the most successful cultural initiatives in our country, which must be supported, studied and celebrated. To conclude, I can tell you about a recent episode. I currently teach at the Escola Superior de Música. This semester, in a group music class, I met a new student, ...Daniel had been my student on the GeraJazz project, when he still couldn’t get on the trombone. Here is the concrete case of how teaching music, done in a structured, committed and supported way, can have a result: success.
Filipe Melo – Pianist, Director, Arranger and Teacher, Hot Clube de Portugal & Escola Superior de Música
Since autumn 2015, GeraJazz has also been a beneficiary of BNP Paribas's Dream Up initiative, which provides support for institutes promoting artistic education worldwide. Specifically, Dream Up selected GeraJazz and the Orquestra Municipal Geração Amadora as their Portuguese partners for supporting the continued musical training of young people outside of the state education system. BNP Paribas's involvement with GeraJazz is, however, not just restricted to the Dream Up initiative. As a long-term partner of Orquestra Geração, BNP Paribas has also supported several other GeraJazz-related initiatives, notably an evaluation of the correlation between music learning and improved academic attainment and the production of a non-commerical double CD in 2016.
...the Orquestra Geração project is perfectly aligned with the values that the BNP Paribas Foundation subscribes to with the launch of Dream Up: [the] integration of young people through the practice of a musical activity whose aim is the development of child and youth orchestras in schools up to the 3rd cycle [pupils aged 12-14], contributing to the more harmonious growth of these children, expanding their perspectives and even improving their school performance.
Conceição Sepúlveda – BNP Paribas Portugal
Most recently, GeraJazz has started to work together with the Universidade Nova de Lisboa - SBE. This embryonic relationship has yet to fulfil its full potential due to the disruptions related to the coronavirus pandemic, but it has already shown great potential in providing a fantastic new location for workshops and yet another great venue for concerts.
GeraJazz perform Easy to Love at Nova SBE in April 2019
Starting up in Oeiras
This autumn doesn't just see GeraJazz enter its second decade, it also sees an important step in its development, with a dedicated new programme starting up in Oeiras and another under consideration in Lisbon.
For, while the programme can look back proudly at the achievements of its first decade, it has attained its initial success in challenging logistical circumstances. Developing from Eduardo Lála's coordination of Orquestra Geração's whole brass programme, GeraJazz's participants are currently all members of different Orquestra Geração nucleos and spread out across the greater metropolitan region of Lisbon. This situation requires Orquestra Geração's central administration to arrange either for numerous separate bus trips from multiple points or to send out a minibus that travels around the region for around an hour, picking up participants and ensuring everyone can attend.
In contrast, the new GeraJazz programme in Oeiras will be focused on one location and will look to train up all the constituent parts of a jazz ensemble, with tuition planned for trumpeters, trombonists, saxophonists, voice and rhythm sections, guitarists, pianists and other percussionists. Furthermore, the new programme will also feature younger players than is currently the case, with tuition being provided for young musicians from the age of 12.
Photos from GeraJazz's first decade
All photos c/o GeraJazz & Orquestra Geração
Use the arrows to scan the gallery
Spreading the word within Europe
GeraJazz has also been looking to get more involved at a continental level and to help encourage other European Sistema and Sistema-inspired organisations to run their own jazz programmes.
In the summer of 2018, members of the GeraJazz team were present in Birmingham at SEYO18, where they formed part of a popular and successful creative music strand offering access to, amongst other styles, jazz tuition and techniques.
GeraJazz lead an evening session at SEYO18
And, the GeraJazz team plans to expand on its international efforts going forwards. Eduardo Lála spoke in particular about two exciting avenues originally under discussion for 2020 and now rearranged for 2021 due to the pandemic.
Orquestra Geração's pop-up orchestra camp plans for 50 young musicians from around Europe will definitely see smaller jazz ensemble groups formed alongside the main orchestra, while discussions are ongoing as regards the exact form of the creative programme for SEYO 2021 in Madrid and the possible role that initiatives like GeraJazz could play.
GeraJazz is also keen to directly share its experience with Sistema organisations interested in developing in a similar direction. In Eduardo's own words:
We also plan to present and promote this jazz programme in several Sistema organisations in Europe, complementing the development of young people, addressing a multicultural musical language, going through different musical styles and repertoires, rhythms and melodies from various parts of the world (by jazz, rock, pop and traditional music), developing skills in improvisation, exploring individual creativity and contributing to a better understanding between different cultures.
Eduardo Lála – GeraJazz Coordinator
Why jazz and how does it fit into the Sistema approach?
While the emergence of GeraJazz can be linked back to an organic development stemming from the enthusiasm of its young musicians, its further evolution has been anything but coincidental and Eduardo Lála's conviction in the power of a well-developed, well-planned jazz programme in the service of the Sistema ethos was clear to hear.
Throughout our discussion, Eduardo emphasised both the similarities that GeraJazz's jazz teaching approach shared with the classical music approach endemic amongst many Sistema proponents and the extra benefits that it is capable of bringing.
For Eduardo, jazz's rhythms and harmonies offer both simplicity and complexity and, thus, lend themselves perfectly to the scaled repertoires that Sistema nucleos use with mixed level groups. Furthermore, both the increased focus on improvisation and the different technical skills that jazz playing introduces to Orquestra Geração participants help develop not only more creativity but also new opportunities for personal expression and interpersonal communication within ensembles. In so far, jazz can be seen as a natural amplifier of the work that Sistema groups carry out and as the ideal opportunity to even further bolster the social skills and personal confidences that Sistema programmes already do such a good job of strengthening.
We wish the GeraJazz team a successful second decade as they enter an exciting and challenging new academic year, faced, on the one hand, by the unpredictable constraints of the coronavirus and, on the other, by the exciting prospect of developing a new tailor-made programme in Oeiras and of bringing their unique approach to the attention of more European Sistemas in Lisbon and, potentially, also in Madrid in the summer of 2021.
Watch our GeraJazz performance playlist
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Want to find out more about GeraJazz?
Below you can find links to GeraJazz's online platforms. Click on the relevant links to visit the websites of your choice:
https://www.instagram.com/gerajazz.orquestrageracao/instagram.com/gerajazz
https://www.facebook.com/gerajazz/facebook.com/gerajazz