Founded in 2020 by several European associations and musicians’ unions, the ‘Voice for Jazz Musicians in Europe’ (VJME) fosters transnational collaboration to promote creative, intercultural experiences through cultural learning.

The VJME is a nonprofit Europe-wide association that aims to stimulate the sharing of good practices and successful case studies within specific European jazz scenes. After two years of participating in several European jazz-related events, in March 2023, the VJME announced its first official board.

Board 2026:

President: Fleurine Verloop (President of BiMpro, Netherlands)

Vice president: Erwan Vernay (Chief delegate of Grands formas, France)

Secretary: Anna Lundqvist (FSJ, The association for Swedish jazz musicians, Sweden)

VJME and the new board look forward to collaborating with current members on new and exciting projects to support jazz musicians in Europe. We also always welcome new members to join us. Contact us for more information: fleurine@bimpro.nl

  • Fleurine Verloop (BiMpro, Netherlands)

    Fleurine Verloop is a jazz & Brazilian music composer & vocalist & lyricist who has recorded 5 albums and toured all over the world. After 27 years of residing in New York she has been living in Amsterdam since the Covid hit and has become President of the Board of Dutch Improvised and Jazz Music (BiMpro). She also spearheaded Voice for Jazz Musicians in Europe together with other European jazz bonds. It is her mission to widen possibilities for jazz and world music in Europe, to improve the infrastructure between European countries and to give musicians a strong voice.

    She is also passionate about gender equality, which is still lagging behind on the international jazz scene. As an artist and composer she has played with her Brazilian Dream Band and other bands all over the world; Montreux jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland NYC, Jazzstandard NYC, Mezzrow, Smoke NYC, Montreal Jazz Festival, and many others.

    Fleurine has also supported a school in Rio de Janeiro in the Favela of Mangeira through album sales and festivals she has produced.

  • Anna Lundqvist (FSJ, Sweden)

    Anna Lundqvist is a jazz vocalist and composer from Stockholm, Sweden. She also holds a career in Portugal. Anna has been working professionally since she completed her studies in 2000 and works mainly with original music and her own projects, in both countries. Read more about Anna at: www.annalundqvist.com

    She is a board member of FSJ, the association for Swedish jazz musicians and the association’s representative for VMJE and international contacts.

    Alongside her career, she has engaged in political advocacy for musicians and cultural workers and founded and run the Vänersborg Jazz Academy, a national talent academy for young jazz musicians. She has also served as chair of IMPRA (which works for gender equality in the jazz industry) and the Western Sweden branch of the Swedish Musicians' Union.

  • Erwan Vernay (Grands Formats, France)

    Erwan Vernay is the Chief Delegate of Grands Formats, the French network for jazz and improvised music large ensembles and collectives. With a background in music and musicology, cultural policy and economy of Culture, his commitment to the independent artistical teams model is expressed through his political role in Grands Formats

    Aware of the European issues for jazz musicians and ensembles, and interested in developing the mobility opportunities and international visibility of the European jazz sector Erwan Vernay conducts a strategy of European development which has led him to be a co-founder of Voice for Jazz Musicians in Europe.

    His belief in the necessity to extend a solid independent jazz model throughout Europe, to strengthen its representation at this scale, and the economic and political foundations which allow its vivacity has made him a strong advocate for the development of international organisations of artists.

Dr Pedro Cravinho, research lead (Portugal)

Dr Pedro Cravinho is a Portuguese former professional musician, educator, and researcher based in Birmingham, UK. He is a Senior Research Fellow in Ethnomusicology and Jazz Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, where he co-leads the Jazz Studies Research Cluster. His research focuses on the development of jazz outside the US, jazz and politics, and the media representation of jazz from the twentieth century to the present. He has published widely, including “The Birth of Porto’s Jazz Scene: Culture, Spaces, and Networks” (Popular Music and Society 45:4), Encounters with Jazz on Television in Cold War Era Portugal: 1954-1974 (Routledge), and “Jazz in fado/fado in jazz: Encounters between jazz and fado in Portugal” (Jazzforschung/Jazz Research 49). More recently, with Renan Ruiz and Antônio Araújo, co-leads Jazz no | do Brasil (Debulhar), the first academic book series dedicated to jazz studies in Brazil. Read more about Pedro at: https://pcravinho.com/

Cravinho serves as a trustee of the National Jazz Archive (England) and the Scottish Jazz Archive (Scotland), and is executive director of the National Jazz Archive Satellite Collection in the West Midlands. He is also a Board member of the Duke Ellington Society UK responsible for the DESUK Archive Collection. As cofounder and former president of the Portuguese Jazz Network – Portugal Jazz – and cofounder and former Vice-President of the Voice for Jazz Musicians in Europe (VJME), he now leads the VJME Research Group.

VJME
Research Working Group



 

Irene Lovato Menin, researcher
(Italy)

Irene Lovato Menin is a licensed psychologist, social researcher, and jazz vocalist based in Italy. Since 2022, she has worked as a social researcher with Community Research & Analysis alongside Prof. Daniele Marini, and also serves as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Padua, focusing primarily on workplace gender inequalities (specifically the Gender Pay Gap and organizational culture) and evolving career values among younger generations.  An advocate for structural change in the cultural sector, she sits on the Board of Directors of MIDJ (Musicisti Italiani di Jazz) and represents Italy in the VJME network. In these roles, her mission is to help shape equitable, inclusive, and empowering working environments across artistic creation and cultural production. 

As a singer and songwriter, she performs regularly at prominent jazz festivals and her musical accolades include winning 2nd Prize at the Jazz Juniors 2026 competition in Poland and the NEXUS Residency grant with her trio men in love run hard, as well as representing Siena Jazz University at the 2026 IASJ Meeting in Mongolia.

Valentina Fin, researcher
(Italy)

Valentina Fin is an Italian vocalist, composer, artistic researcher, and cultural project manager based in Vicenza. She is a PhD candidate in the IMAP programme in Musical Interpretation and Performing Arts at Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan. Her research explores the relationship between Renaissance vocal rhetoric and contemporary composition and improvisation, with particular attention to women composers, gender perspectives, and the relational dimensions of vocal polyphony. Alongside her artistic research, she has worked at the aiku – Art, Business, Culture research centre at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, contributing to the mapping and analysis of cultural and creative ecosystems. Her background combines studies in cultural heritage, arts management, and vocal performance, informing an approach that connects artistic practice with the organisational and social conditions of cultural production.

She is co-founder and president of Bacàn, a cultural association developing artistic residencies, music productions, and professional development opportunities for emerging musicians, and cofounder of Bucce Studio, a social enterprise working across cultural planning, research, and production. She is vice-president of MIDJ, the Italian association of jazz musicians. Across these roles, her work focuses on supporting younger generations of artists, strengthening professional networks, and fostering more inclusive opportunities within the music sector. www.valentinafin.com

Edoardo Cian, researcher
(Italy)

Edoardo Cian is a guitarist and psychologist. He studied at Siena Jazz University and graduated in 2026.

As an improviser and songwriter, his musical research focuses on the exploration of the interaction between composition, storytelling, and improvisation. For this reason, the voice plays a central role in his projects, leading him to collaborate with singers such as Ada Montellanico – with whom he performed in Dakar in 2024 – and to lead vocal-driven projects, such as Ària quintet. 

In April 2026, he took part in NEXUS 2026, a workshop series supported by MiC and SIAE. This led to the recording of the single Try. Taste. Change? as part of the ZENITH - Solstice Festival in Vicenza with his new project, men in love run hard. With the same trio, he won second prize at the 50th edition of the Jazz Juniors Competition in Krakow in 2026.

He is a board member of MIDJ (Association of Italian Jazz Musicians) and serves as the association’s representative at VJME.

Alongside his musical career, he works as a research psychologist in the social sciences. This background drives his approach to jazz – not merely as a musical genre, but as a cultural attitude: an openness to diversity and new forms of interaction through composition and improvisation.