Jiří Kotača

Trumpeter Jiří Kotača is a graduate of the Brno JAMU Department of Jazz Interpretation. As part of his master’s studies, he dealt with big bands, but also with leading the band and interpreting songs and applying the trumpet in a jazz orchestra. He is the co-founder of a jazz quartet together with the Swedish guitarist Alf Carlsson, whom Kotača met during his study stay in Rotterdam. In May 2017, this ensemble recorded compositions in the recording studio of the Brno Theater at Orlí, which remarkably connect elements of national musical traditions with contemporary jazz. Dynamic compositions, in which lyrical and expressive positions alternate, in many cases do not deny where their authors come from. Another interesting Kotáč project is undoubtedly the Cotatcha Orchestra. The band founded in Brno in 2014 is composed of students, graduates and teachers working at JAMU. The orchestra initially focused on the interpretation of compositions from the orchestra repertoire of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, but gradually the band also began to include original compositions by experienced and younger domestic authors. The repertoire included compositions by Vincenc Kummer or Miroslav Hloucal, but also Augustin Bernard, Jiří Levíček and Martin Konvička. And everything indicates that the band will be able to rely in the future, as well as the author, on the joint work of the upcoming generation of creative musicians who met at the Brno JAMU.