Igor Kossenkov

He discovered the blues while studying for his advanced degree in trombone in Moscow, because it was one of the styles included in the syllabus. From Russia he moved to Venezuela, where he began to perform professionally with the country’s Symphony Orchestra and occasionally with big bands. In 2006 he arrived in Barcelona and soon made his way into the African-American roots music scene, playing from time to time with some local groups, but above all through his participation with the Mambo Jambo Arkestra and the Barcelona Big Blues Band, where he played until 2022, when he moved to Paris. His academic musical training and his long experience performing opera and classical music mean that his immersion in the blues gives him a greater interpretative freedom and a different musical outlook: “It is a genre that is played in another way, in which the most important part is the collective feeling of all the members of the band and their direct connection with the audience.”