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Lucian Ban & Alex Harding

Jazz Duo

Lucian Ban

Recipient Information

Location

Brooklyn, New York

Medium

Jazz Duo

Project Title

Dark Blue

Year of Award

2020

Grant or Fellowship

Jazz Road Tours Grant

Grant Amount

$9,915

Performances

About the Artist

Lucian Ban was raised in a small village in northwest Transylvania, in the region where Bartok did his most extensive research and collecting of folk songs and grew up listening to both traditional and classical music. He studied composition at the Bucharest Music Academy while simultaneously leading his own jazz groups, and notes that his approach to improvisation has been influenced by the profound musical contributions of Romanian modern classical composers like Aurel Stroe, Anatol Vieru and of course Enesco.

Desire to get closer to the source of jazz brought him to the US, and since moving from Romania to New York in 1999 has been leading several projects creating music that reinvents the jazz idiom and collaborating with some of today’s most celebrated jazz musicians. His compositions are performed and recorded by other musicians and ensembles and he has released 15 albums under his name for labels such as ECM, Sunnyside, Clean Feed, CIMP, Jazzaway, all the while maintaining a worldwide touring schedule.