Mindaugas Stumbras Quartet (LT/FI)

The Lithuanian guitarist Mindaugas Stumbras has dreamed up a dynamic, colourful and flexibly versatile musical world at the head of his quartet. His picturesque compositions are shaped by the impulses of the broadly defined European jazz scene and the American jazz tradition, as well as by influences from Lithuanian folk music and Scandinavian improvisation music. Carrying the air of the Nordic landscapes, the emotive melodies are played in a mature, gentle voice, sometimes punctuated by explosive, powerful outbursts and dissonances. Yet, the sound of the quartet's music is determined by the intimate atmosphere, which is created again and again by the ever-present feelings of melancholy and nostalgia and the meditative harmonic flows.