Perpetuum Jazzile is a Slovenian choir that performs jazz and popular music. It was founded as Gaudeamus Chamber Choir in 1983 by Marko Tiran. In 2001, Tiran passed the art directorship of the choir to Tomaž Kozlevčar, the renowned music producer, arranger and vocalist, who was followed by Peder Karlsson ten years later.
The choir consists of both female and male singers. They are occasionally augmented by jazz instrumentalists from the RTV Slovenia Big Band and Slovenian pop stars such as Alenka Godec, 6Pack Čukur, Alya, Oto Pestner, Jan Plestenjak, Nuša Derenda and others.
The choir uses a wide spectrum of jazz styles, performing complex and dense harmonies, characteristic of close harmony music. They were originally inspired by Gene Puerling, The Singers Unlimited, and The Swingle Singers. They perform bossa nova and swing music, as well as funk, gospel and pop, either a cappella with vocal percussionist Sašo Vrabič aka. Multitask , or with a jazz trio.
Perpetuum Jazzile organized a vocal jazz seminar in Ljubljana with Swingle Singers founder Ward Swingle.[citation needed] It has won awards from the Vokal.Total and IVGF (Tilburg, Netherlands) international jazz vocal music competitions, and the Choir Olympics 2008 in Graz, Austria. It performs Vokal Xtravaganzza evening concerts in Cankar Hall in Ljubljana, every Fall, offering a variety of Slovenian and foreign vocal jazz and pop music guests.
In 2006, the choir recorded its Čudna noč album, which was released by Dallas Records in September. Shortly after it organized a concert with Mansound (from Kiev, Ukraine). In December, it released its first video Čudna noč, the title track of its new album. Tracks from the album occupied the tops of charts of the most important radio broadcasters around Slovenia,[citation needed] whereas the album itself was ranked among the top ten best-selling albums in Slovenia.[citation needed], earning them the prestigious award "Viktor" in 2010 ( equivalent to a Grammy Award). Two separate YouTube videos of their performance of "Africa" has had over 12 million views combined since first publishing in May 2009 until September 2011. The performance earned kudos from the song's co-writer, David Paich.
In the Summer of 2011 Perpetuum Jazzile embarked on a "World Tour", which took them to sold out venues in Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Canada and the USA.
Source: Wikipedia
