Two Moons Project, Jeroen Pek & Sid Hille, Improvisation Pure

Dutch flutist/composer Jeroen Pek and Helsinki (FIN) based German pianist/composer Sid Hille met each other in the Utrecht (NL) jazz scene in the late 80’s of the last century. Strangely enough they never played together back in those days. Sid moved to Helsinki more than twenty years ago and they lost contact. Over the years both did built up vast international track records as musicians and composers. Then, in Spring ’18 they met again on Jazz Ahead in Bremen (D). Sid invited Jeroen for a duo concert in his Two Moons Chamber Concerts Series in the Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki which took place in May ’19.

The concept of the Two Moons Concerts is about an encounter of musians for spontanious improvisation. Both reknowned for being eclectic, curious and adventurous, Sid and Jeroen did put all their individual musical luggage and an armada of instruments and electronic effects in it. The click was there and a new project of storytellers was born.

Jeroen Pek: Sid&Jeroen Two Moons Project 1

Jeroen Pek studied flute at the jazz department of the Codarts university of arts in Rotterdam (NL). He studied among others, with Herb Geller, Ferdinand Povel and Bob Brookmeyer and graduated in 1992 as a Master of Music. In the same period he was already flute teacher at Codarts.

Internationally renowned for his joyful energetic power play, great pallet of dynamics and a personal sound Jeroen has been touring and recording for over three decades with a wide array of projects. Both with his own and as a sideman he toured in Europe, North Africa and the USA.

His most striking groups today are multi-national line ups, such as Jeroen Pek International Quartet with French jazz heroes Serge Lazarevitch (guitar) and Jean-Luc Lehr (bass), Flute Flight with Stefan Bracaval, Ewout Pierreux (NL/B), Pitch Plot 4 featuring Ahmad Jamal bass player James Cammack, Christian Pabst/Tony Roe, Onno Witte (NL/USA/D), Pek-Doepke-Teepe-Hart Jr. (NL/GER/USA) and the ethnic-jazz group 6 Spoons-1 Kitchen (NL/TUN/EG/MOL/BRA).

Notable bands earlier are Jeroen Pek Band, Jeroen Pek Quartet and the jazz-rock format PitchWhiteStorm and PitchWhiteStorm Exchange. He played with the finest musicians of the International (jazz-)scene such as Jasper van ‘t Hof, Rob van den Broeck, Pierre Courbois, Grammy Award winner Fathy Salama (EG), Nuevo Manteca, Afework Nigussie (ETH), Bohemian Groove Orchestra, Onno Witte’s Wild Card, Sandro Schneebelli (CH), Gerard Pansanel (F), Ramon Valle (CUB) and Giullia Valle (SP).

High lights in his discography are: Jeroen Pek Band “In my hammock” (Via records 1998), Jeroen Pek Quartet “Uplands” (Munich Records 2004), PitchWhiteStorm “The view and the tales” (Jazzshop Records 2008) “Four layers of abstraction” (STAB 2009), 6 Spoons, 1 Kitchen “Blend” (LopLop 2011) and Pitch Plot 4 “Big eyebrow, live in Europe” (Zennez Records 2017) “It happens along the way” (Zennez Records 2018).

Jeroen was twice nominated for the composition contest of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (Washington D.C./USA). He is the principal flute teacher at the jazz department of the ArtEZ conservatory in Arnhem (NL) and gave many master classes (f.i. the Liszt Conservatory in Budapest (H), Flute Festival in Gland (CH) and the Flute Convention in Milano (I).

Jeroen Pek is endorser of the Inderbinen Brass Flute.

Jeroen Pek: Two Moons Project

Sid Hille studied piano, jazz improvisation and composition at the Utrecht School of the Arts in Holland with Bert van den Brink and Jasper van’t Hof and graduated in 1993 as a Master of Music.
Sid made his debut as a band leader and composer in 1993 with the CD ‘Dunjin’s Dance’.
Bass player Hein van de Geyn (NL) and drummer André Ceccarelli (F) joined him for this project as well as for its follow-up recording ‘To Be Frank’ in 1995.

In 1994 Sid moved to Finland and became head of the jazz department at the Central Ostrobothnia conservatory in Kokkola.
During this period two solo-piano recordings were released on Nazca Music: ‘Deep North – The Quiet Place’ in 1997 and ‘Reflections’ in 1998.

In 1997 Sid formed the Platypus Ensemble. Regarded by many as one of the principal representatives of Finnish chamber jazz the quartet has toured extensively in Scandinavia and Central Europe. Five by audience and press well received albums were released: ‘Platypus’, ‘Gestalt’, ‘Satsang’, the live album ‘Life@Play’ and ‘Rite of Passage’. In 2016 Sid formed the Sid Hille Quintet SH5 to continue work along the Platypus Ensemble’s artistic guidelines.

In 2002 Sid Hille received a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation for a Big Band composition. Composing ‘Frutas Maduras’, a 50-minute concerto for trombone and jazz orchestra, forms a landmark in Sid’s career and life.

Now living in Helsinki, he devotes most of his working time to composing and performing.

As a composer Hille has been successful with compositions for big band, chamber music and film music. He won an impressive list of composition awards such as ‘Scrivere in Jazz’ in Sardegna, Italy and received composition assignments from f.i. The International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) chose Hille’s bigband composition ‘Felsenfest’ (2005) to be performed at the World New Music Days 2010 in Sydney, Australia and recently Sid received the commission to compose and produce a sound installation for the EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. The installation will be revealed on April 27th, 2019 and it will be on exposition until January 2020.

His music for the feature film ‘Kohtaamisia/Heartbeats’ by Saara Cantell, 2010 was nominated for the Finnish Film Prize.

Sid Hille has played weekly solo piano recitals in Helsinki’s famous Temppeliaukio Church since 2002. More than 400 concerts have been enjoyed by thousands of visitors during the run of years and the tradition continues in 2019.

In recent years Sid has been performing and touring with a stylistically wide array of bands:
the Sid Hille Trio F# and the Contemporary Collective explore the realms of free improvisation. Both bands have been touring extensively in Finland, Estonia and Germany.

The Sid Hille Camerata is a chamber music ensemble (string quartet with piano or other soloists) performing Sid’s compositions. Their release ‘Farbformen’ in ‘17 received 5-star reviews and was nominated for ‘Best recording of 2017’ by the Finnish Broadcast Corporation YLE.

Jeroen Pek: Two Moons Project Sid