Kurt Elling at the Metropole Orkest’s International Arrangers Workshop

From March 19-24, 2012 eight very talented young arrangers, chosen from about 200 applicants, participated in the 2012 Metropole Orkest’s International Arrangers Workshop. Vince Mendoza, conductor of the Metropole Orkest, declared, “Of the 15 years that we’ve been doing this, this is the finest group of students that I’ve seen here — or anywhere for that matter.”
Introducing the eight arrangers:

Rasmus Puur (Estonia)
Malte Schiller (Germany)
Laura Winkler (Austria)
Vidjay Beerepoot (The Netherlands)
Christian Elsässer (Germany)
Daniel Jamieson (Canada)
Erica Seguine (USA)
Jesse Passenier (The Netherlands)

Each wrote an arrangement for Kurt Elling to perform at the Grand Finale Concert in Rotterdam on March 24.

Kurt said later, “I was deeply impressed by ALL of the arrangements. They uniformly reflected deep musical intelligence and communicated transparent emotion. I thank all the fine young arrangers for their dedication to craftsmanship and hard work. I look forward to performing these with the orchestra once again at the The Meer Jazz Festival in Hoofddorp, NL on June 2 . . . and well into the future.”

Selections from the concert were broadcast over two weekends on Co Live!, the Soul & Jazz radio program hosted by Co de Kloet on Radio 6 in The Netherlands. Those are are now available as podcasts for your listening pleasure. The full broadcasts are four hours each. The segments with Kurt and the Metropole Orkest are listed below.

Part 1: Sunday, March 25, 2012
From 2:22:50-2:25:00 Kurt describes the tunes and their selection.

From 2:27:25 to 2:58:35 Vince Mendoza introduces Kurt and they play:
Butterfly (Herbie Hancock) – Rasmus Puur, arranger
Speak No Evil (Wayne Shorter / lyric by Kurt Elling) – Malte Schiller, arranger
Duke Ellington’s Sounds of Love (Charles Mingus) – Laura Winkler, arranger
Tempted (Squeeze) – Vidjay Beerepoot, arranger

Part 2: Sunday, April 1, 2012
Beginning at 2:02:50, the Metropole Orkest plays:
A Streetcar Named Desire (Alex North)

From 2:13:10 to 2:38:00 they perform:
An American Tune (Paul Simon) – Christian Elsässer, arranger
Late Night Willie (Keith Jarrett / lyric by Kurt Elling) – Daniel Jamieson, arranger
Time To Say Goodbye (Joe Zawinul / lyric by Kurt Elling) – Erica Seguine, arranger

From 2:40:30 to 2:47:25 they perform:
Tutti For Cootie (Duke Ellington / lyric by Kurt Elling) – Jesse Passenier, arranger

From 2:47:55 to 2:55:50 there is an interview and they conclude with:
Esperanto (Vince Mendoza / lyric by Kurt Elling) – Vince Mendoza, arranger

And if you’d like to read Kurt’s new lyrics for Speak No Evil and Late Night Willie, they’re in Kurt’s book, LYRICS, Second Edition, now available in the Kurt Store. Time to Say Goodbye and Esperanto are included, too.