Nationale BigbandsForever Dag

Op 6 APRIL 2024 werd in het Akoesticum - trainingscentrum voor muziek, dans en theater te Ede 
de tweede Nationale BigbandsForever Dag gehouden.
Wij zijn zeer verheugd te vermelden dat opnieuw dankzij onze samenwerking met het Akoesticum deze dag tot stand kwam.
De dag stond in het teken van het dirigeren en leiden van een bigband

(met behulp van "The General Method" van Mats Holmquist en werd afgesloten worden met
een open repetitie van Randy Brecker (!) en het Millenium Jazz Orchestra

Middagprogramma was o.a.

-The General Method uitleg door Mats Holmquist 
- Openbare repetitie met Randy Brecker en het Millenium Jazz Orchestra

Wat is de General Method?

Introducing The General Method by MATS HOLMQUIST
(publ. Jamey Aebersold Jazz)
 
Mats Holmquist is a composer, arranger, big band leader, educator, lecturer, author and
entrepreneur residing in Stockholm, Sweden. He travels extensively around the world and records
CDs, perform concerts, workshops and lectures. His tour of Spring 2022 included nine world
cities in three months including Los Angeles, Toronto, Berlin and Warsaw. In 2024 he will record
his 10th big band album “A Tribute to Woody Shaw”.
Mats Holmquist is the creator of The General Method. Very likely this is the only actual
methodology concerning playing and directing a big band. One could describe it as scientificially
based. It took Mats 20 years of professional work and empirical studies as a big band director to
formulate these concepts.
He discovered that if one can is able to achieve a greater understanding of what he calls the
“natural laws of music” then better results can be achieved. Understanding that most crescendos
happen too early, certain notes are more important than others (and should be emphasized), and
that a series of syncopations are most often rushed, things start to happen in the band.
Mats Holmquist has created ca. 350 terms and defintions and many visual symbols that he draws
on a whiteboard while expaining his ideas. The General Method can create amazing results in a
very short time. That’s why students have said things like:
'A whole new Universe is opened"
"I learned more now in two days than in 20 years earlier"
During the National Big Band Day Mats introduced his methodology in different contexts:
the basics, quickly learning a new piece, coaching Dutch big band directors while directing, using
the methodology with a professional big band, and more. Jazz Focus Bigband was used as tool and examples!