Bigband Electronics Live in Plovdiv

The Czech ensemble rewriting the rules of orchestral jazz

There is a particular kind of tension that builds in a room full of brass. Seventeen musicians, a conductor's signal, and then — something unexpected. Not the warm, burnished swing you anticipated. Something grittier. More electric. More now.

That is what Cotatcha Orchestra does. And on March 15, 2026, they bring it to Radio Plovdiv's First Studio — a room with the acoustics of a recording studio and the intimacy of a concert hall. Free entry. Live stream on stationstreet.bg.

A Big Band Built for the 21st Century

Founded in Brno, Czech Republic by trumpeter and composer Jiří Kotača, Cotatcha Orchestra was never intended to be a museum piece. Kotača studied at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, then pushed further — Rotterdam, Barcelona — absorbing different musical worlds before returning to build something new at their intersection.

The ensemble draws from students, graduates and faculty of JAMU, and that academic foundation shows — not in stiffness, but in precision. They know exactly what they are breaking and why.

Their debut album Bigband Elektronika, released in 2020 on the American label Parma Recordings, crystallised the project's vision: original compositions that treat the big band not as a genre to replicate, but as a sonic architecture to redesign. The album won the Czech Jazz Harvest Prize and received a nomination for the Anděl Award — the Czech equivalent of a Grammy.

Electronics as a First Language

What separates Cotatcha Orchestra from nostalgia acts is a commitment to the present tense. Electronics are not decorative here. They are structural. A synthesiser texture doesn't sit beneath the brass — it answers it, challenges it, sometimes overwhelms it.

The result is music that feels genuinely hybrid: not jazz with electronic garnish, not electronic music dressed in acoustic clothes, but something that belongs equally to both and fully to neither.

Kotača has described the project as "big band for the 21st century" — a format where orchestral tradition meets contemporary composition head-on, without apology or nostalgia.

In Plovdiv, the band will perform music from Bigband Elektronika alongside new compositions from their forthcoming studio project — material being shaped for the first time on a Bulgarian stage.

A Room Worth the Journey

First Studio at Radio Plovdiv is not a conventional concert venue. It is a broadcast-grade recording space with a stage built for large ensembles — the kind of room that makes seventeen musicians sound like one coherent instrument. The acoustic environment will allow every layer of the orchestra's sound to register: the low end of the bass and drums, the shimmer of the brass section, the electronic textures woven through the arrangement.

The concert will be filmed with a multi-camera production and streamed live on stationstreet.bg — free of charge, available to anyone in the country.

Why This Matters

Cotatcha Orchestra represents something relatively rare on the Bulgarian concert calendar: a European ensemble working at a genuinely high level, presenting original music, arriving with a serious production and making it entirely accessible.

No ticket price. No barriers.

Just a big band that has decided the future of orchestral jazz is worth the risk.

March 15, 2026 / 19:30 First Studio – Radio Plovdiv Free entry Live stream: stationstreet.bg

This concert is part of Beebopcafe.TV Live Sessions, supported by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, under project BG-RRP-11.024-0075.