SAO (Sweet Alps Orchester)

Matthias Schriefl trumpet  
Paolo Trettel trumpet  
Klaus Dickbauer trumpet  
Achille Succi alto saxophone  
Christian Maurer tenor saxophone  
Helga Plankensteiner baritone saxophone  
Federico Pierantoni trombone  
Peter Cazzanelli  trombone  
Michael Lösch piano 
Glauco Benedetti tuba  
Matteo Giordani, Marco Soldà, drums

A new star-studded project by Michael Lösch between folklore and jazz. Balkan African and Alpine elements merge in jazz and give rise to extravagant improvisations. The Sweet Alps Orchestra has existed since 2005, when Michael Lösch was commissioned by the "Jazz & Other" festival in Bolzano to write the jazz concert for band "SWEET ALPS" with soloist Gianluigi Trovesi. This was the beginning of an orchestra that has repeatedly performed with new line-ups: in 2006, the suite for jazz band "VOYAGE" was commissioned by the Merano Music Weeks, in 2009 "HEROES" for the South Tyrol Jazz Festival with soloist Steve Bernstein, in 2010 the new program "SWEET ALPS MUNDIAL" with Gianluca Petrella and Matthias Schriefl, in 2017 the project "Heroes: when the soldiers march" with adaptations of Mahler songs for the South Tyrolean Festival in Dobbiaco. In 2023, there was a new edition of the orchestra with a new line-up for the Lana Meets Jazz festival. Among the soloists are the Allgäu jack-of-all-trades and trumpeter Matthias Schriefl, 2 saxophonists from the famous quartet Saxofour Klaus Dickbauer and Christian Maurer, the clarinettist Achille Succi, who recently performed with Uri Caine, and South Tyrol's baritone saxophonist Helga Plankensteiner.