One of the most prolific and creative saxophonists of the young Slovenian jazz generation, Jure Pukl received Slovenia’s highest national award for contribution to the arts (2015 Prešeren Fund Award). He obtained university education abroad and studied classical and jazz saxophone at the University of Vienna as well as the Hague Conservatory of Music. Pukl then won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where he pursued his studies with masters as notable as Joe Lovano and George Garzone. Throughout his studies Pukl performed and recorded extensively, engaging in his own projects and working with a number of great musicians active in different genres, most notably Dave Liebman, Branford Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding, George Lewis, Maceo Parker, Vijay Iyer, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Gregory Hutchinson, Damion Reid, Darius Jones, Doug Hammond, Gerald Cleaver and Adam Rogers. He is recipient of many awards for his achievements and has toured extensively throughout the US, Asia and Europe, performing in venues such as Blue Note, Smalls Jazz Club, The Jazz Gallery, Ronnie Scotts, The Vortex, Pizza Express, Jazz Spot J Tokyo, Porgy & Bess, Stadtgarten and festivals that include Winter Jazz Festival, Moers Jazz Festival, Vienna Jazz Festival, Pori Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Jazz à Vienne and Cairo Jazz Festival. In his own projects, most notably the Doubtless, Broken Circles, Abstract Society, MEAT or Sound Pictures, Pukl dedicates himself to modern interpretations of jazz and improvised music. What he creates is a unique type of modern jazz, avantgarde, free jazz and impressionistic contemporary music performed with a great deal of knowledge and love, giving prominence to the interplay between band members. He published eight albums under his own name and received rave reviews all over the globe, garnering praise from the influential Downbeat, The New York Times, Jazzwise, Jazz Podium and All About Jazz. He is also featured on more than 50 other projects as a sideman.

Self-expression beyond genre Jure Tori is an accordionist and composer whose melodies smell of wine and soil and carry the air of the Pannonian Plain, the Mediterranean, the Alps and the Balkans. Tori has played in many different places, from underground coal mines to the very top of the mountains. The intimacy of his delicate solo accordion embraces the warmth and cosiness of a fire place while his powerful folk punk band Orlek rocks the biggest stages of the world. His ear soothing melodies gently caress the soul and the heart. Tori is an extremely charismatic musician who expresses his personality, traumas and pleasures through his original compositions. In playing he finds the easiest way to hide and run away from the outside world into his own. Jure Tori has performed in small villages and on most important stages all around the world. Together with Ewald Oberleitner and lately with Tori Trio, Tori Tango, Tori Story he has toured Slovenia, Austria, the Czech republic, Slovakia, Italy, Croatia, Great Britain, France … With his group Orlek he has played in many European countries, USA, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. He has performed in New York, Sydney, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Moscow, London, Paris, Prague, Bratislava, Sao Paulo, Monte Video, the European parliament in Brussels, Vienna and Ljubljana. His projects include collaborations with various musicians from all around the world; Austria, Italy, Cuba, Argentina, the Czech Republic … Jure Tori’s compositions are a part of the curriculum programme for students of accordion, and The Slovenian Music Information Center has published his compositions on their jazz and ethnic compilations. Tori’s work can also be found in animated films, feature films and a number of Slovenian and Austrian documentaries.

Just Friends Quartet is modeled on the traditional jazz quartet ensembles of saxophonist Sonny Rollins. The ensemble thus revives and reinterprets the jazz sound of the 1950’s. They have upgraded the rearranged jazz standards by their own authored music true to the traditional jazz spirit.

The music of the experimental folk trio Kačis, consisting of Tea Vidmar and Širom’s Ana Kravanja and Samo Kutin, emerges from the field of adventurous folk music and the legacy of free improvisation. Taking notes from archaic global traditions, their exploratory expression transcends all familiar forms. Kačis presents an aesthetic characterised by an inventive interplay between rhythmic singing and the sounds of diverse noisemakers and instruments, which through improvisation grow into exquisite sonic reveries.

Kaja Draksler (1987) is a pianist and composer. After her studies in the Netherlands (BA in jazz piano and MA in classical composition), she decided to stay in Amsterdam, where she is an active member of the improvisation scene, performing extensively all over Europe. Besides her frequent solo concerts, over the past years she has been working internationally with several bands: Feecho, Punkt.Vrt.Plastik, Hearth and Draksler-Santos Silva duo, Kaja Draksler Octet, etc. She is one of the founding members of the interdisciplinary group I/O and part of the internationally acclaimed Doek collective.

As a room's confining embrace, Kamra grabs and plunges you in a world of allegories, ruminations and imagery on their debut album Cerebral Alchemy. There is no shortage of uneasiness intertwined with familiarity here. You will hear nods to those who came before and left their mark, only for this five-piece to interpret their legacy in a disturbing, brutal, unnerving, beautiful, even caring way. Their music is permeated by a black metal atmosphere, with a kick of old school death metal, while the vocals leave one questioning genre theory. In this ambiguity and with anonymous band members, Kamra continues to be veiled in mystery.

Karmina Šilec has brought freshness and originality to the world of music and theatre. As a theatre director, conductor and composer she has projects with various companies, drama and opera houses, festivals and ensembles worldwide. Karmina has developed the artistic concept Choregie. 

Katalena trace their beginnings to a music workshop organised in summer 2001 in Črmošnjice, a village on the edge of Bela Krajina (White Carniola). Although devised as a one-off project, the workshop soon developed into a full-time band. Katalena draw inspiration from Slovenian folk music heritage but instead of seeing it merely as a resource seek to establish a dialogue with the past through music and lyrics and thus reflect on their own embeddedness in time, space and community, as well as its history and present-day reality. Katalena are one of those bands that resonate with all generations and have garnered great critical acclaim both at home and abroad.

Katarina Juvančič and Dejan Lapanja first appeared on the Slovenian music scene in 2009, when their folk-rock song Uej uej (Magdalenca) entered the Slovenian National Radio’s newcomers contest. Often described as alt-folk, bridging modern trends and ancient folk influences and sensibilities, their music has twice won awards at the Slovenian songwriting competition. Katarina and Dejan’s debut album, “Selivke” (Migratory Birds), garnered high praise in Slovenia and abroad. Featuring 17 artists from Scotland and Slovenia, their second album “Hope’s Beautiful Daughters” was released in August 2014. The third release, “Vmesje” (Betweenings), came out in 2017. The duo has performed in Slovenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, India and Sri Lanka.

Katarina Pustinek Rakar graduated in composition from the Ljubljana Academy of Music, where she later also received her master’s degree. She composed more than a hundred pieces, predominately for various vocal ensembles or solo voice. She also composes pieces for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and larger works for wind and symphony orchestras. She teaches at the Ljubljana Conservatory for Music and Ballet and at the Ljubljana Academy of Music.