Concert of Jeanfrançois Prins and his trio

Jeanfrançois Prins is a melodic storyteller with a distinctive voice on the guitar. His life has been devoted to music — as guitarist, composer, arranger, director, and producer — spanning jazz, world, film, classical, pop, and more. He has worked with legends including Toots Thielemans, Ivan Lins, Lee Konitz, Eddie Gomez, Quincy Jones, Michel Legrand, Kenny Wheeler, and Gary Bartz. An internationally sought-after leader and soloist, he spent most of his career between New York and Berlin before returning to Brussels to continue his journey and run the family label, GAM Records. With eight albums as a leader and over 50 as guest soloist, Prins’ poetic, passionate playing — featured in The Great Jazz Guitarists (Scott Yanow, 2013) — is instantly recognisable for its lyrical focus on melody. His latest album “Blue Note Mode”(GAM 925) has received tremendous accolades in the international press, including an “Editor’s Pick” in the DOWNBEAT Magazine.

Pianist, composer, and vocalist Margaux Vranken subtly blends influences from jazz, pop, and film music. She has a comprehensive and diverse musical background: classical training (piano, music theory), choir member at the Chœur des Jeunes de l'Opéra Royal de la Monnaie, jazz piano at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and founder of the Pinto quartet, which won the Audience Award at the Brussels Jazz Marathon competition in 2014. After a year at the prestigious Berklee Global Jazz Institute (Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, Dave Liebman, Terri Lyne Carrington, Joe Lovano, Anat Cohen), Margaux Vranken released her first album as a leader, with the invaluable help of her producer Diederik Wissels. “Purpose” is a patchwork of ten rich and varied pieces in which the pianist enters into osmosis with 14 exceptional musicians with the sole aim of playing together and conveying these shared emotions to the listener.

Fil Caporali is a Brazilian double bassist and composer, winner of the 2016 Toots Thielemans Jazz Award. Trained in São Paulo and Brussels, he is currently pursuing a PhD at VUB/Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel. As leader or co-leader, he has developed projects such as Moon Souvenirs, Moanin’ Birds, and his own quintet, while also performing with ensembles including Commander Spoon, Synestet, and Pauline Leblond’s Double Quartet. His career has taken him across Europe, the UK, China, Taiwan, Panama, and Brazil, with appearances at festivals and venues such as Flagey’s Brussels Jazz Festival, Festival Radio France de Montpellier, and Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.

A self-made-man, Italo-Belgian virtuoso drummer Bruno Castellucci has been a leading musician worldwide for six decades. He can be heard on hundreds of recordings and in thousands of concerts, from the few leaders with whom he has played for sometimes more than thirty or forty years, such as Toots Thielemans, Peter Herbolzheimer, Jan Akkerman, to many other luminaries such as Jaco Pastorius, Chet Baker, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, Chaka Khan, Sammy Davis, Jr., John Scofield, Dizzy Gillespie, the Count Basie Big Band, Freddie Hubbard, Dianne Reeves, Astor Piazzola, .... It would be much quicker to draw up a list of our favorite musicians with whom he has not played. In late 2024, celebrating his 80th birthday and 65th anniversary as a professional musician, Castellucci released an album as a leader with his new band, entitled “LEGACY” (GAM 926). Its release coincided with that of the biography "Bruno Castellucci - Itinéraire d'un Sideman" (Michel Mainil - Bossa Flor).