Jazz & The City Salzburg: It takes two
The Jazz & The City Festival bring Viennese media- and performance artist Oliver Hangl to Salzburg as co-curator.
5 days – 30 stages – 70 concerts – free entry: This year, Salzburg’s jazz festival Jazz & The City celebrates its 20th anniversary. Founded by the Altstadt Verband Salzburg, it has evolved into a festival for exploration. Rarely do you get the chance to let yourself drift and enjoy concerts in such diverse locations as theatres, churches, wine cellars, vacant buildings and courtyards, as you do during those 5 days in Salzburg’s historic centre.
For three years now, Tina Heine who founded the international Elbjazz festival in her hometown of Hamburg, has been in charge of the program and has expanded the festival passionately. Borders to other disciplines and art forms are consciously blurred and the urban space is artistically explored and played on.
In order to do this she has now brought in support for the anniversary. "In Oliver Hangl, I have found a congenial partner when it comes to offering more to visitors and actively involving them in the festival idea". Tina Heine
Let’s explore the squares, streets, alleys, courtyards and hiding places of Salzburg! In cooperation with Oliver Hangl, who keeps going back to public spaces with his mobile concerts in Vienna, the local “Beschwerdechor” or concerts on construction sites for example, Tina Heine has continuously expanded the playing field in the historic centre of Salzburg. Oliver Hangl enters the city with new formats, in which both audience and musicians can rediscover often familiar, sometimes unusual places. His site- and situation-specific interventions question existing pathways, redefine them, open up completely new experiences and spaces and encourage the visitors to actively use them. When the conventional stage situation is thus dissolved, festival artists who perform in the evenings can be experienced in completely different situations during the day.
Blind Dates – Regulars – Crossover
A new concept of the festival that is even more intensively pursued this year already when booking the program, is cherished by the audience and musicians alike. Bands and solo artists come to the city for several days, play various concerts in various combinations, some originating here, sometimes the same program for a second time. The artists are happy to get to know the city (otherwise rarely possible on tour), to develop closer contact with the audience (encounters on the Mozartsteg while shopping) and to try out new things – noted as "blind dates" in the program - in which a few of our regulars participate, in particular vocalist Almut Kühne, drummer Edward Perraud, or the Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhus.
In Salzburg, the boundaries to other musical styles (such as World & Electronic Music) have been blurring for some time, but ever since Tina Heine is responsible for the programming, you will also find crossover projects - from fine art via film to multimedia. The artists invited this year include the Italian architect and sound designer Nicola di Croce, the multimedia artist Stefano D'Alessio from Vienna, and the artist Katrin Bethge from Hamburg, who works with indoor and outdoor projections and, like the musicians, invite others to blind dates.
Festival programmers who do not book the big names in the Hancock-Marsalisleague, can invest in even more promising bands whose names are more likely to elicit a "wow!" from connoisseurs. American Rising Stars like trumpeter Theo Croker or saxophonist James Brandon Lewis are great examples of this. In the case of Rolf Kühn, an artist no less than legendary, who is celebrating his 90th birthday in Salzburg, it may be more appropriate to speak of a “big name”. World music acts like Somi or Habib Koité still have more class than popularity.
For artists like Dudu Tassa with his band The Kuwaitis or the experimental pianist Elliot Galvin, this may also be in this country true at least– for now. After the Israelis’ performance at the opening night and the Brit’s most likely legendary concert with saxophonist Binker Golding, they might soon be the talk of the town along the Salzach.
A special logistical challenge this year is the fact that a large number of great large-ensembles are visiting the festival: the Euroradio Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Christoph Cech, the Jazzorchestra Vorarlberg, the anarchistic Belgian band Flat Earth Society. Little Rosie's Kindergarten,"5/8erl in Ehren", Mira Lu Kovacs (also with 5KHD), Echo Boomer and many more belong to the extensively represented Viennese scene.
The current line-up:
5KHD | Flat Earth Society | Almut Kühne | Nubiyan Twist |Botticelli Baby | Jarmo Saari | Christopher Dell | KeïtaBrönnimann Niggli | Theo Croker | David Helbock | Dudu Tassa & The Kuwaitis | Echo Boomer | Edward Perraud Trio | Elina Duni & Rob Luft | Elliot Galvin & Binker Golding | Euroradio Jazz Orchestra | | FORQ | diAlog | galega_optickle | Habib Koité | Hejira | Hofmaninger/Schwarz Duo | Albers Ahoi | James Brandon Lewis | 5/8erl in Ehr‘n | Rocket Man | Welten | Jazzorchestra Vorarlberg | City Blues Connection | Jesper Munk | Little Rosies‘ Kindergarten feat. Christian Reiner | LIUN + The Science Fiction Band | Hang Em High feat. Ståle Storløkken | Lotus Eaters | Marie Kruttli Trio | Elliot Galvin Trio | Mozarteum Marching Band | Mykia Jovan | Branko Galoic | NaneFrühstückl Trio | Pedro Melo Alves | Rolf Kühn | Rucker 5 | Schmieds Puls | Silent Witness | Somi | Splashgirl | StianWesterhus | Theo Ceccaldi Freaks | Velvet Revolution | Y-Otis | Christoph Pepe Auer |
