Swinging Europe’s history

It all started during a trainride to Copenhagen Airport.

Birgit Vinge looked at Erik Moseholm and said: “Let’s do something!”

The conversation soon blossomed and before they reached the airport, it became increasingly clear: Birgit Vinge would fund the money if Erik Moseholm brought the project ideas to the table.

The plan was to collect young musicians from all over Europe and give them an artistic standpoint in an exclusive band.

The first year was 1996 and the project was called BIMWO – Brande International Music Workshop. The success of the project inspired a sense of motivation, and most of the following year, Birgit Vinge could be found in the hallways in Brussels, where she tried to raise additional funds from the EU.

From 1998 the European jazz orchestra European Jazz Orchestra – EJO – became a reality, and in 2005, the international network, European Broadcasting Union (EBU) became involved in the project, in which they were responsible for choosing the best musicians to play in the European jazz orchestra . European Jazz Orchestra lasted until 2013. In 2001, the project PLAY! GROUND LIVE was added to the portfolio, and the list of projects has become ever expanding ever since.

After many years of working specifically with jazz music at an European level, which the European Jazz Orchestra project was the epitome of, Swinging Europe has expanded our position and expertise to work with interdisciplinary cultural projects at both a local, regional, national and international level.

Swinging Europe arose from a special love of jazz and music in general and one of our main goals is still to develop musical talents. We still work with jazz music, but today we engage with all musical genres in an attempt to break with the traditional genre definitions.

From the beginning of 2015, Marie Lilholt has been in the driver’s seat as CEO of Swinging Europe and is responsible for implementing new projects based on the institution’s history.