The Port of Life III.

From Where to Forever (Od Koder Za Vedno) is the epilogue of the trilogy The Port of Life (recipient of the 2017 ASCAP Johnny Mandel Prize) and a full-length composition for jazz septet and string quartet by New York-based composer and jazz drummer Žan Tetičkovič. It serves as the final act of the composer’s long journey through immigration and assimilation. While the first (2016) and second (2020) parts of The Port of Life project narrate the composer’s migratory experience in a travelogue-like manner, the third installment intertwines musical motifs and orchestral harmonies to explore deeper questions of collective subconsciousness, transience, and the metaphysical proximity or distance of existence. At its core, it reflects a yearning for immigration immortality—a symbiosis of time, space, and individualism. The title From Where to Forever is inspired by AION, a work by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung. It marks the conceptual destination of the trilogy, where the spatial unknown (From Where) and temporal eternity (to Forever) become subordinate to the composer’s process of individuation, ultimately dissolving their influence in the realm of migratory anxiety.

Cast • Žan Tetičkovič (Jean John), drums, composer • Alba Nacinovich, vocals • Tomaž Gajšt, trumpet, flugelhorn • Lenart Krečič, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet • Jani Moder, guitar • Marko Črnčec, piano • Matej Hotko, double bass • Matija Krečič, first violin • Nejc Avbelj, second violin • Barbara Grahor, viola • Zoran Bičanin, cello

Žan Tetičkovič (1991, stage name Jean John) is a Slovenian jazz percussionist, composer, and producer based in New York. He is the recipient of several composition awards, including the 2017 ASCAP Johnny Mandel Prize, and the author of projects such as The Port of Life, Requiem, Sophisticated Swing, Oktoechoes, and A Love Lane Nocturne. He studied jazz percussion and composition at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York with renowned jazz figures such as Reggie Workman, Jane Ira Bloom, Chris Stover, Gil Goldstein, Robert Sadin, and others. He later earned a master's degree from the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona. In 2023, he began a doctoral program at Stony Brook University in New York, where he also teaches. As an arranger and orchestrator, he contributed to Wayne Shorter’s opera Iphigenia and collaborated with musicians such as Jack DeJohnette, Ron Carter, and the Gil Evans Orchestra. He also works as a producer at Trinity Church Wall Street. He has performed with leading international and Slovenian jazz musicians on prestigious stages, including the John F. Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Jazz Gallery, Cankarjev dom, and Jazz Festival Bern.