Jazz at JAKI: Fiona Grond & Luca Zambito

Fiona Grond and Luca Zambito are undoubtedly among the most interesting discoveries on the young Munich jazz scene, which has been steadily gaining profile and visibility over the past few years. Together they are now exploring the tradition of the piano-vocal duo and its expressive possibilities. Inspired by role models such as Norma Winstone and Fred Hersch or Cecile McLorrin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner, the two perform their own compositions as well as favorite pieces from the most diverse styles of music history. In their intimate dialog, the two musicians can play freely with time, harmony, melody and phrasing. The result is always captivating moments of surprise, sometimes playfully rhythmic, sometimes delicate and lyrical, sometimes lyrically powerful and sometimes onomatopoeic, but always accurate and enchantingly beautiful.

In addition to his work as a sideman in the Munich and Viennese jazz scene, for example in the Nils Kugelmann Trio or the Valentin Renner Sextet, pianist Luca Zambito is also active as a bandleader with his own music. In 2018 he won the LAG Jazz Prize with the Viennese band Tiktaalik and in November 2021 the Young Munich Jazz Prize with his own project, the Luca Zambito Quartet, with which he has been touring at home and abroad ever since. In early 2023, he released his debut album "Ancestry" and was awarded the BMW Young Artist Award in the same year.

After her successful debut "Interspaces" in 2021, Swiss vocalist and composer Fiona Grond released her second album "Poesias" on the renowned label ACT Records in August 2023. In addition to her own projects, she has already performed with the Christian Elsässer Jazz Orchestra and the Jazzrausch Big Band. She won the Women in Jazz Next Generation Competition and the Jazz Prize of the City of Halle, as well as the International Jazzbeet Competition at Jazzfest Bonn. In 2020, she received the Leonard and Ida Wolf Memorial Prize for Music from the City of Munich.