The Impressions in Jazz Orchestra (IJO) is Canada's first symphonic jazz orchestra. Based in Ottawa, the IJO brings together many of Canada's finest jazz and symphony orchestra musicians under the direction of conductor and bassist Adrian Cho. This unique ensemble has garnered widespread acclaim from both critics and audiences for its highly entertaining, innovative and educational presentations of seminal jazz-centric music.
So much more than just a "big band," the range of IJO ensembles includes small chamber jazz groups, dance bands and "society orchestras," a seventeen-piece jazz repertory orchestra, a twenty-five-piece neophonic orchestra and a fifty-piece symphonic jazz orchestra.
The IJO's broad repertoire includes original compositions; pre-jazz dance music and early jazz from the 1850s to the early 1900s; swing dance music from the 1920s to the 1940s; instrumental jazz from the 1920s to the 1960s including significant repertory works written for the orchestras of Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Stan Kenton, Johnny Richards and Claude Thornhill; and jazz-influenced neoclassical works by composers such as Bernstein, Gershwin, Shostakovich and Stravinsky.