Conad and the Umbria Jazz Foundation announce the absolute winners of the Conad Jazz Contest,
now in its ninth edition and open to young musicians aged between 18 and 28, soloists or groups, with the opportunity for 10 finalists to perform on the prestigious Perugian stage during the days of the event, and significant career support – with a contribution of 5,000 euros – for the first classified.
Bologna, 15 July 2022 – The first absolute prize of the Conad Jazz Contest 2022 goes to the band Five Angry Men, a jazz quintet born in Siena and made up of musicians from four regions of Italy.
The Artistic Jury – chaired by Stefano Bragatto, Director of Radio Monte Carlo – attended all the live performances of the young musicians who alternated at the Carducci Gardens on the “Conad Stage” of Umbria Jazz on 11, 12 and 13 July, of in front of an interested and involved public.
With the following motivation “the jury particularly appreciated the interplay of the group and the energy of the execution” the Artistic Jury thus commented on the choice of the Five Angry Men as absolute winners of the ninth edition of the Contest.
The Five Angry Men band has therefore won the € 5000 prize as a contribution to career, and will have the opportunity to perform throughout the rest of 2022 on the most prestigious jazz stages around Italy, starting with UJ Weekend (Terni , 15-18 September 2022) and Umbria Jazz Winter # 29 (Orvieto, 28 December 2022 – 1 January 2023).
Five Angry Men is a quintet born within the walls of Siena Jazz, whose repertoire ranges from free jazz, hard bop and modern jazz. The group consists of the saxophonist Lorenzo Simoni, the trumpeter Giacomo Serino, the pianist Pierpaolo Zenni, the double bass player Matteo Bonti and the drummer Mauro Patti. Coming from 4 different regions (Tuscany, Lazio, Abruzzo and Sicily), they share the desire to experiment with new languages starting from tradition.
And the prizes awarded for this ninth edition of the Contest do not end here: the prize for participation in the Berklee Summer School at Umbria Jazz Clinics 2023 goes to the pianist Lorenzo Vitolo, a prize awarded at the sole discretion of the technical and artistic juries to the single musician deemed most promising.
Honorable mention of the Artistic Jury for the Olivia band, “for the completeness of the project, the care in the arrangements, the technical quality, and the stylistic and improvisational maturity”, despite the fact that the band did not comply with Article 2 of the Contest rules.
The Conad Jazz Contest is a joint initiative of Conad and the Umbria Jazz Foundation, which since 2013 have contributed through the competition to support new musical careers in the jazz field. Support for Umbria Jazz and young talents through the Conad Jazz Contest is part of the strategy sustainability concept of Conad, called “Let’s support the future”, and based on three dimensions: environment and resources, people and communities, businesses and the territory.
Conad has always been close to the needs of the communities in which it operates, going beyond the walls of its own points of sale, through a concrete commitment that is expressed in environmental initiatives, social and cultural: the 2022 edition of Umbria Jazz represents an important cultural occasion of aggregation and enhancement of cultural heritage.