The musician prize and the #huninvesterer scholarship
We congratulate bassist Per Zanussi on the Kongsberg Jazz Festival's musician prize for 2023 and saxophonist Mona Krogstad on this year's #huninvesterer scholarship. Both prizes were awarded during the jazz festival's opening. The musician's prize of NOK NOK 200.000 will be awarded to musicians who have made a strong mark on the Norwegian jazz scene. The #huninvesterer grant of NOK NOK 100.000 will be used to invest in their own careers and will be distributed to female musicians in the establishment phase.
Per Zanussi – bass player and composer
- It is a great honour, said award winner Per Zanussi. I look forward to making lots of new music and projects for next year. In 2024, it will actually be 30 years since I played at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival for the first time, that time in Festivalgata. So it will be a kind of 90th anniversary when I come back to play at next year's festival, he concluded.
Zanussi has gradually established itself as a vital powerhouse in Norwegian jazz life and has a very open-minded approach to creating music. He can move from experimental improv contexts via 60s-inspired power jazz to expressive free jazz. He has an enormous capacity for work and has written and organized larger projects for the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Vestnorsk Jazzensemble and Kitchen Orchestra.
Zanussi has an education from the famous "Jazzlinja" at NTNU in Trondheim and from the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He also has a doctorate in improvisation from the University of Stavanger. He plays bass, both acoustic and electric. He composes, arranges and is a band leader.
The award winner moves frictionlessly between different artistic expressions, so he has also written music for theatre, dance performances and short films. He is impressively versatile. He can play steady comp with Petter Wettre and free jazz with Martin Küchen. His obvious musical curiosity and impressive creativity have found expression in a number of interesting bands and collaborative constellations – such as Wibutee, Zanussi 5, Zanussi 13, Trespass Trio, Eyolf Dale Trio – and many more. He has played with an incredible and impressive range of top international musicians. In accordance with his versatility and genre liberalism, he has also contributed in more pop cultural contexts, such as with Stein Torleif Bjella, Valkyrien Allstars and Thomas Dybdahl. We must also mention the experimental rock band Wunderkammer.
The award is primarily given to musicians who have put a personal stamp on their musical expression. The music must be of high quality and stand out in the musical landscape. The award winner must have shown initiative and a desire to create something new, create their own projects and carry out musical development work. That this musician is absolutely central to Norwegian musical life goes without saying, but the jury also considers the opportunities he has to reach beyond the country's borders and make a name for himself in international jazz.
Kongsberg Jazzfestival's musician award is not an award given for long and faithful service, but an award with a double intention - both to recognize the musical effort up to now, and to give the award winner a stimulating boost going forward. We appreciate what has been done - and have high expectations for what is to come.
Mona Krogstad – composer, bandleader and saxophonist
- This scholarship gives me an opportunity to realize dreams that I have been harboring for a long time, says Mona Krogstad when she thanked the jazz festival and DNB for the development scholarship.
Ever since Mona Krogstad was noticed as a young music student in Trondheim, she has consistently and purposefully developed herself and her music, and she is now in the process of establishing herself on the Norwegian music scene. Mona Krogstad is an excellent instrumentalist, she composes and is a band leader. She is keen to reach different audience groups, so she is in bands that are quite different - such as Ladybird Orchestra, Juno, Superspreder and her own quartet.
The scholarship winner is already making an international name after several concerts in Denmark, Germany and England. The desire for a wider background than the Norwegian one has resulted in her having attended a folk music college in Sweden and has parts of her education from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm.
Last autumn, Mona Krogstad released her first record with her own quartet. There she places herself in the middle of a proud jazz tradition, where the inspiration from legends such as Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson is clear. This album is actually a small masterpiece, and bodes very well for her musical future.
DNB and Kongsberg Jazzfestival established the #huninvesterer grant in 2022. The development grant will go to a musician in the establishment phase of their career who has shown a significant will and uncompromising commitment to their own artistry. The candidate may also have demonstrated the ability to reach a new audience through new communication methods, and the ability to collaborate across national borders and musical expressions.
Through the #huninvesterer grant, DNB and Kongsberg Jazzfestival together want to shine a spotlight on the economic gap between women and men who are both present in the financial sector and in the music industry. The first prize was awarded during the festival last year and went to the guitarist and composer Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir. She has used the grant to record the album "Mirage", which was released earlier this year.
Photo: Birgit Fostervold
