The 30th Jazzkaar Festival which ended last Sunday delighted music lovers with 160 events, including 80 concerts in the main programme. This year’s festival reached 26,000 visits, with 5,500 people enjoying the Free Concerts’ Day.
In addition to Tallinn, the events of the Jazzkaar Festival from 19 to 28 April also reached music lovers in Tartu, Pärnu, Haapsalu, Kuressaare, Rapla, Rakvere, Viljandi, Narva and Muraste. A record number of nine Estonian ensembles presented their new albums at the festival. More than 500 LPs and CDs were purchased by Jazzkaar visitors. Klassikaraadio recorded ten concerts that are available for listening on the Klassikaraadio website. Several of them will reach listeners in Europe through the EBU.
Anne Erm, the artistic director of the festival, highlights the fascinating creative styles of Estonian jazz musicians at this year’s festival. The opening concert of the festival, Erkki-Sven Tüür & Lepo Sumera Rewrite,as well as album release concerts, received a lot of praise from both local and foreign music journalists. “I hope that the positive energy gathered at the festival and the healing power of music will carry us until the next festival. Together with the listeners I am grateful to the Jazzkaar team, our partners and our 150 volunteers for the successful jazz celebration,” Erm added.
Festival photographers captured artists’ performances and the festival atmosphere on more than 4,000 photos which can be seen on the festival’s Flickr account. Nearly 80 articles, audience polls and interviews conducted with the artists by the media team of volunteers are available on the Jazzkaar website. For the fifth year already, the festival hub was located in Telliskivi Creative City. This year the audience was welcomed in the newly renovated Red House (Punane Maja), which is a perfect place for a jazz festival. The 10th birthday of Telliskivi Creative City was also celebrated during the festival.
The main performers of Jazzkaar 2019 were Bobby McFerrin & Gimme 5, John Scofield, Joshua Redman and Judith Hill. The Annual Jazz Award of the Year was granted to saxophonist Raul Sööt. The photo exhibition Jazzkaar 30, poster exhibition about the festival design, radio show Jazzkaar 30and the campaign Kuulan jazzi (I Listen to Jazz) took a look back on the 30 years of the Jazzkaar Festival. Particularly popular this year were Jazz Talks which brought together more than 260 people. Once again, the festival also thought about small music lovers with the family concert performed by Jarek Kasar, Jaan Pehk and Kirke Karja as well as concerts in schools and kindergartens. Jazzkaar considers it important to bring new special projects onto the stage. The programme of the 30th anniversary festival included the concert Erkki-Sven Tüür & Lepo Sumera Rewriteled by Kirke Karja and Mingo Rajandi, as well as Jazzkaar 1990 Rewriteby Raivo Tafenau Festival Ensemble and soloists.
The main sponsors of the Jazzkaar Festival are JURA, Jazz Pesulad and Eesti Päevaleht. Yearly sponsors are My City Hotel, BMW, Tallink and Aktaprint. Bobby McFerrin’s Gimme 5concert was presented by Viru Keskus. The festival hub was supported by Prike and Telliskivi Creative City; our café partner was Reval Café. We were also supported by Overall, MyFitness, Kodupaber, NOBE and ERR. The Embassy of Israel, Embassy of Sweden, the Goethe Institute in Estonia, the French Institute and the Hungarian Institute have helped bring musicians from their countries to Estonia. The festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the City of Tallinn.
Festival programme: www.jazzkaar.ee
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