Lolita

Contact

Lolita

http://www.ljudmila.org/lolita/

Events abroad

Past Events

• 13 Jun 2014

  Serbia Sombor Sombor National Theatre

  
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  Chekhov's The Bear, directed by Zijah A. Sokolović with music by Lolita, at the Theatre Marathon

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 13 Oct 2013

  Albania Elbasan

  
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  Chekhov's The Bear, directed by Zijah A. Sokolović with music by Lolita, at the Skampa International Theatre Festival

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 21 Apr 2013

  Kosovo Peć Kosovski festivalski grad Peć

  
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  Chekhov's The Bear, directed by Zijah A. Sokolović with music by Lolita, at the

  
  

  
  

  
  

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Established in 1987, Lolita is veteran Slovenian band with a marked looseness concerning ther line-up as well as their genre orientation. Throughout their 10 albums and mumerous live shows and projects they have flexed their jazz foundation into many other fields, most markedly rock, ethno and free improvisation. They themselves say it's a "HiEnergy Turbo Porno Minimal SugarFree Pop Funky Overdrive Ethno Broootaal HardGroovie NuJawzz kind". Even though change is the only musical direction they follow, they still have a distinctively trademark sound to themselves; a sometimes laid back and more often energetic groove and cacthy melodic themes, along which the saxophone circles.

Their musical flexibilty is very much defined by their ever evolving line-up. As musicians come (and go) their own musical visions and preferences are keeping the band's sound fresh evcen after 25 years.

Line-up

In 1987, the was founded by Blaž Grm (drums), Primož Simončič (saxophone) and Iztok Vidmar (electric bass). Tha later two have remained the band's core since than; a year later, the band was re-enforced by a guitair player Samo Ljubešič. In 1991, Samo and Blaž left the band, while the new drummer became Mirsad Šabič. In 1997, a new drummer is again introduced, this time the now one of the more sought by drummers in Slovenia, Marjan Stanič, who remained in the band till 2010 and left a decisive mark in the bands sound. Other musicians, involved for shorter periods, were Jelena Ždrale and Matjaž Sekne (violin, Igor Bezget (guitar) and singers Mojca Dimec, Alenka Vidrih ter Alenka Marsenič. The current drummer is Uroš Srpčič, with whom the band has recorded their latest album, while the forth member of the current permutation is Neža Naglič on piano.Due to her začasna absence, the band at the moment also features Matjaž Sekne on violin and Neža trobec on vocals.

The band also played with some notable foreign musicians; trumpeters Axel Doerner and Ventzislav Blagoev, saxophone player Jessica Lurie and pianist Antoni Donchev. The later three were part of a side project called Lolita Libre, which also featured Matjaž Manček on guitair and Tomaž Grom on double bass.

As the band's musical collaborations are hard to follow, the zgornji seznam is probaly still imperfect.

Projects and performances

They started collaborating with other perfomenace arts in 1991, when they muzicirali in a Teathre Ana Monro play called George Dandin. That year they also performed (music and gib) in a dance performance Vso srečo ti želim (I wish you good luck). First presented in Cankarjev dom, it was later also featured in a Budapest dance theater festival. They later collaborate in other performance acts. Also, one of their Cds was pospremljen with a series of T-shirts that were designed by a number of Slovenian artists. In 1996 they first worked with Zijah A. Sokolović, a bosnian actor, with whom they created the show called Medved, based on play by Anton čehov, 1997. The show was awarded at the Bitola monodrama festival in 2003 and has since than toured throughout the middle- and eastern- Europe festivals. It was gotten awards on most of them ((Bitola, Kijev, Mostar, Erevan, Moskva, Kiel, Ruma, Nizhnevartovsk, Smederevo).

With the aforementioned project Lolita Libre they played at various stages between 2002 and 2006; it was marked by a more lose approach to musical structeres and a much bigger poudarek on improvisation and experimentation. Even than, it was still very much "Lolitesque". A CD called Nero e Bianco was recorded in 2003. It can be freely downloaded from the web.

They played on a number of music festivals; they appeared twice on the stage of Jazz Cerkno Festival and the Ljubljana Jazz festival, and also played at Pepsi Sziget Festival (hungary), Kumanovo Jazz festival (Macedonia), Nishville Jazz festival and Jazz Festival Kragujevac (Serbia), Jazzeuropa Festival 2004 Tel-Aviv and many others. Besides musical concerts and theatre music they also appeared on stages poetry...

Their discography at the present consists of 12 albums, many of them recorded live. Most of them are freely available on the internet (whole cd's or just a few songs).It is hard to list al the other bands and projects that the band members are or were involved in. Marjan Stanič is or was involved in Žambo žoet, Bast, alzheimer trio, Jimmy Barka Experience Bratko Bibič & The Madleys, Vasko Atanovski trio, jessica Lurie Ensmeble, Uršula Ramoveš in fantje iz jazbecove grape, to name just a few. Iztok Vimdar was a member of a 80s band Čao Pičke and plays in the band Borghesia, Uroš Srpčič played in Demolition group and neža Naglič in Salamandra Salamandra.