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About us / News / 05. April 2022
©Frank Rasimowitz

Pop academics receive jazz award

05. April 2022

The "Popular Music M.A." - students Simon Schneid (guitar) and Michael Goldmann (electric bass) were awarded with their band "NICO THEO" as second winners of the European Young Jazz Award 2022 in Burghausen.

The quintet "NICO THEO" is a jazz band founded by Stuttgart saxophonist Nico Theodossiadis, in which he is also a soloist. World music traces run through the compositions, grounding them and acting as a counterpoint to the intense dynamics of the compact band sound. The young quintet has already developed a very complex and balanced sound, which knows how to skilfully switch dramaturgically between expressive and balladic moments. Thus the band achieves its goal - to draw its own pictures with an instrumentation that is well known in modern jazz history.
Already in 2020 "NICO THEO" qualified for the finals of the European Young Jazz Award, which could only be held this year due to corona. A total of five bands played in Burghausen in Upper Bavaria on March 22, 2022 in the final for the European Young Jazz Award, which is endowed with a total of 15,000 euros. NICO THEO" came in second behind the Polish "Szymon Klekowicki Sextet". The final and the award ceremony took place during the 51st International Jazz Week Burghausen and could also be followed via live stream. NICO THEO" was also allowed to open this on March 23, 2022 as a support act for Joy Denalane. The international Jazzwoche Burghausen is a major annual jazz festival since 1970, where also regularly national and international jazz greats, such as already Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie, perform and come together.

Click here for the performance of NICO THEO in the finale
The finalists

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