A record 25 000 people took part in the 28th International Festival Jazzkaar concerts, Sunday of sounds and urban project events. In addition to 70+ concerts taking place in Tallinn at the Telliskivi Creative City and the Nordea Concert Hall, the festival visited 12 places around Estonia. 210 musicians from 23 countries performed at Jazzkaar.
The artistic director of the festival, Anne Erm is glad to see that the audience is growing and very happy about the music performed. “During the 10 days of changeable spring weather Tallinn and other places around Estonia were able to enjoy the worlds’ best jazz music. Besides the legendary artists like Dianne Reeves, Steve Gadd, Han Bennink or Spyro Gyra, excellent Estonian jazz musicians offered equivalent experience,” said Erm.
Dianne Reeves, Kira Skov & Maria Faust, Steve Gadd, Iyeoka, Holler My Dear and grand gala concert “Ella Fitzgerald 100” turned out to be the most popular and sold out. Liisi Koikson, who finished the sunday of sounds programme filled the Vaba Lava hall with the absolute maximum capacity of 1000 people.
New Estonian music was brought to Jazzkaar by Kristjan Randalu Limes Occidentalis, Tõnu Naissoo, Erki Pärnoja, Liisi Koikson, Maria Faust in collaboration with Danish singer Kira Skov, Siiri Sisask and Estrada Orchestra.
Jazzkaar is growing older with every year and thinking about the aftergrowth of jazzfans. This year featured 3 fun family concerts for the youngest: Tanja Mihhailova in Tallinn and Maarja Nuut in Tallinn and Tartu.
The 11th Estonian Jazz Awards were presented at this year’s Jazzkaar. The Danske Jazz Award was won by guitarist Mart Soo, Young Jazz Talent 2017 by bassist Janno Trump. The Jazz Promoter Award went to photographer Rene Jakobson and the Jazz Band of the Year was awarded to Peedu Kass Momentum.
In addition to sorting our waste for several years already, this year we introduced in co-operation with Topsiring the reusable cup deposit system, to decrease the amount of plastic waste.
28th International Festival Jazzkaar in numbers:
• 25 000 visitors, 12 500 sold tickets
• 210 musicians from 23 countries
• 150 volunteers
• 97 musical events in the urban space. In addition to streets, schools and public transport, the urban space project reached for the first time also several care homes. Special jazz stage was up at the Viru Keskus.
• 99 reviews, audience polls, interviews and videos by the volunteers web team.
• 20 foreign journalists, agents and festival organisers from the USA, UK, Finland, Hungary and Poland.
• 12 concert venues in addition to Tallinn: Tartu, Pärnu, Viljandi, Türi, Narva, Elva, Otepää, Saku, Kõltsu, Rakvere, Rapla, Haapsalu
• 3200 pictures in Jazzkaar’s official photo gallery
Jazzkaar 2017 in pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jazzkaar/collections/72157679649048723/
Reviews, interviews and audience polls at the Jazzkaar homepage:
http://www.jazzkaar.ee/en/news/
Jazzkaar on Youtube:
interviews with artists, urban space project events
Jazzkaar thanks all the visitors, musicians, partners, sponsors, volunteers and everybody who helped the festival take place.
The Gold Sponsor of the festival is Danske Bank. Jazzkaar 2017 main sponsors are KAFO, Jazz Pesulad, Eesti Päevaleht. Accommodation partner is My City Hotel, yearly sponsors are United Motors, Tallink and Aktaprint. The festival centre was built together with Prike and Telliskivi Creative City, cafe partner is Reval Cafe, Dianne Reeves was brought to Estonia with the help of Viru Keskus. Overall, Kodupaber, Myfitness – thank you! Festival Jazzkaar 2017 was also sponsored by Ministry of Culture, Kultuurkapital and the City of Tallinn.