Sunday, February 25, 2024
6:00 pm EST
WPAC Concert Hall
$20 general, $15 senior/FIU faculty, staff, & alumni, $5 student
2024 MIGF Festival Pass
is available to attend all festival events at a single reduced price: $100 general, $70 senior/FIU faculty, staff, & alumni, $30 student
“…starting from our roots we try to expand our own personalities, ensuring that traditional forms move, change and go to different places…”
-Gradus Jazz
Enrique Lleida: Piano & Bass
Pablo Lleida: Bass & Piano
Santiago Lleida: Drums (Batería)
Curiosity, the attempt to see things that have connections, both musical, poetic or abstract, is the essence of the music created by the Lleida brothers. They currently serve as Professors at the Aragón Superior Conservatory of Music and as professors at the Monzón Conservatory. Likewise, they have offered masterclasses at Universities such as those of Castilla-León and Zaragoza, as well as secondary education institutes and other Conservatories.
With a long history, Gradus Jazz has performed throughout Spain and also outside its borders. It represented Spain at the 2015 Milan Universal Expo with 12 concerts and its members also performed at the Zaragoza International Expo in 2008 in different shows. Based on the various groups they are part of, they have also performed in different countries in Europe, America and Africa.
At the same time, Gradus was the ambassador group of the Government of Aragon in its Tourism promotion events, acting in Barcelona, A Coruña, Seville, Málaga, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Alicante, Vigo, Madrid…
This group has been a pioneer in the fusion of jazz and folklore and from this fusion they released the CD titled Folklore & Jazz.
The work presented is a set of compositions that tries to evoke various “landscapes.” Starting in many cases from our traditional popular music, these compositions are carefully crafted, and in them the perfect combination of different elements and sound materials is sought. Gradus has created innovative music, full of color, possibilities, as well as very attractive and accessible to all types of audiences. The same At the same time, some nods to classic jazz standards are included in the concerts.
They have also recorded with groups such as Durme, Grooveland Trío, Llave de paso, Aragón Symphonic Band, cultural cooperation production project with Morocco 2018, Cantan l’aragonés (first opera album exclusively in Aragonese), incidental music for performances with José A. Adell and C. García, music for the film “September Light”…
Some of his songs have been performed by famous jazz musicians such as Ronald Baker, Ignasi González, Gerard Nieto or Xavi Hinojosa.
Depending on the needs, the group has luxury collaborators: for voice (Terela Gradín and Julia Maro), guitar (Luis Giménez and Albert Cubero, formerly of Joan M. Serrat), saxophone (Fernando Lleyda and Chavi Naval).