From July 13th to July 28th, it was great to be in Grožnjan, the center of jazz in Croatia, because of its traditional Jazz Is Back! – BP festival. This famous jazz festival started in 1999 by legendary Croatian musician Boško Petrović. Grožnjan is a very unique Istrian city of culture and art, and Boško was for many years in charge has the jazz summer school in the International Youth Music Center.

This year’s festival was a great opportunity to socialize and enjoy great performances of renowned musicians, just to name a few: Zdenka Kovačiček and Green House Band, Marko Tolja with Jazz Orchestra of Croatian Radio Television (conductor Andreas Marinello), B’s FUNstallation, Karlheinz Miklin Trio, JM Jazz World Orchestra, Renato Chicco Quartet, Jim Rotondi Electric Band, Grožnjan Stardust and others. The final night of the festival, named BP Night, was dedicated to the founder and long-time festival leader, the legend of Croatian jazz, Boško Petrović.

Besides the festival, it is worth mentioning the traditional Summer Jazz School of Croatian Music Youth, which has also been held in Grožnjan since 1999, and this year hosted 49 participants. The participants of the Summer Jazz School of HGM, were presented to the audience at the evening called “Mlade nade jazza – Jazz School Finale”. Proud mentors of the young participants were American trombone player Luis Bonilla, Austrian-American trumpet player James Robert Rotondi, American singer Charenee Wade, Croatian pianist Davor Dedić, American drummer John Riley, Croatian guitarist Elvis Stanić, American contrabass player Andy McKee, Colombian pianist Hector Martignon and Austrian saxophonist Karlheinz Miklin.

Euro-Unit and Yamaha are already known as traditional partners of the festival and we are delighted that Euro-Unit was once again in charge of the complete music production of the festival, including music instruments, the complete equipment on the stage with an additional presentation of the Yamaha PA system (Yamaha TF-3 digital mixer and Yamaha DSR series of high-quality active loudspeakers), which impressed many festival visitors, but also the most demanding professional users who attended the concerts every night to enjoy the quality of Yamaha’s PA equipment.