Jazz Meets Mozart

Uniting Jazz and the music of Mozart, this project aims to assimilate the core values of these wildly divergent genres into an exciting feast for the ears and eyes.

The journey to this challenging creative destination was originally led by drummer, composer and arranger Michael Pignéguy, followed by fellow West Australian arrangers Mike Nelson and Grant Windsor.

The arrangements and new works for the concert sourced material from the Oboe Concerto in C, the Countessa’s aria (‘E Susanna’) from the Marriage of Figaro, movement number 1 from Symphony number 40, the Overture to the Marriage of Figaro, the Overture to Don Giovanni and the Lacrimosa theme from the Requiem.
The jazz quartet, which became the Australian Jazz Collective in 2008, features multi award and 'World Saxophone Competition' winner (Montreux 2003), Jamie Oehlers as well as international performers Tom O'Halloran (piano) and Sam Anning (acoustic bass) based in Australia and Michael Pignéguy (drums).

This project has been performed in Western Australia for the 250th Anniversary of Mozart's birth (2006) and also in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in 2007. While the Australian performance featured the Mozart Festival String Quartet, the UAE concerts saw expanded musical arrangements performed by the Dubai Philharmonic Orchestra (now the UAE Philharmonic Orchestra). Both UAE concerts, Emirates Palace (Abu Dhabi) and DUCTAC (Dubai), received standing ovations.

Michael's aim with this project is tour it internationally with Australian Jazz Collective performing with either resident string quartets, string orchestras or full symphony orchestras.

Please see the 'videos' section of this website for live performances.

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