Only one day after the great concert of European Jazz Ensemble at Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Esra Dalfidan & Band was selected as the next highlight of this year’s jazz festival EURO Jazz 21′. Esra Dalfidan (1975) is a brilliant and ambitious Turkish singer and songwriter who was born and grew up in Solingen/Germany. She studied music at Fachhochschule Heidelberg and Academy of Music Amsterdam. In 2004 Esra Dalfidan, together with some fellow students, i.e. Franz Von Chossy (piano), Tobias Klein ( bass clarinet/alto saxophone), Sean Fasciani ( bass), meanwhile replaced by Clemens van der Feen, and Uli Genenger (drums), founded the jazz band Fidan. In its music the quintet combines wunderful highly enjoyable elements of classical modern jazz with emotionally charged Turkish oriental sounds and beautiful lyrics as well as reflective stories on life, love and people. On occasion of the concert evening in Bonn the band line up was changed on two positions: permanent piano player Franz von Chossy was replaced by Dimitar Bodukov and Tomas Merlo played bass instead of Clemens van der Feen. Both musicians, as well as the others, did a good job. When the concert ended at 10.45 pm the enthusiastic audience didn’t want to leave, so the band entered the stage again for 3 encores. In March of this year (2008) Esra Dalfidan, first-place winner of Nederlands Jazz Vocalisten Concours 2007, released her debut album titled “Fidan – Colors” (label:“ Challenge Jazz).
