Artist: Marc van Vugt's Big Bizar Habit

a jazz-chamber orchestra
Marc van Vugt's Big Bizar Habit is an 11-piece ensemble as large as a traditional chamber music orchestra but consisting of musicians who have earned their credits at the interface of contemporary composed music and jazz and improvised music. A combination of a jazz string quartet, a 3-piece horn section, vocals, guitar/banjo, piano, string bass and drums.

In 1996 the ensemble debuted in a multimedia project in co-production with the Dutch Film Museum in Amsterdam. We performed a new score to some of the silent movies of the famous French cineast George Méliès. In 1998 the ensemble was extended to its current line up for a concert tour in the Netherlands. In December 1999/ January 2000 the group toured again, performing at prestigious festivals such as Stranger than Paranoia, Tilburg. The Creative Arts Fund (major composition fund in the Netherlands) commissioned me to write for this ensemble. Fall 2002 a double CD “Big Bizar Habit/Strings Only’ was presented with live recordings of the preceding concerts. The Creative Arts Fund commissioned me again to write for this ensemble enabling me to write the new Van Doesburg suite.

Edison Jazz Award 2001
Nexus Guitar Award 2003
Honourable Mention at the Julius Hemphill Jazz Composition Competition 2002

Ensemble in residence 2008/2009 at the SJU Jazz Podium show native description