The 23rd Tallinn International Festival Jazzkaar rejoiced 24 000 music-lovers with more than a hundred events in Tallinn and in 16 other places all over Estonia. The new venue and festival center Marina Pavilion built by the festival’s production partner RGB in the vicinity of Old Town at the seaside got the most positive feedback from both the audience and musicians.
The keywords of this festival were new Estonian and European jazz, new venues, more active relationship with the people of Tallinn and the audience. Jazz sounded for ten days all over Estonia and brought a lot of fresh and good creation to the listeners, Klassikaraadio radio station broadcasted many of the concerts and the festival media team reflected everything that happened on the Jazzkaar website and Facebook page.
The main performers of the festival Jan Garbarek Group with the Indian percussion virtuoso Trilok Gurtu and the American velvet-voiced singer Lizz Wright gave the most popular concerts and won a lot of hearts. The record number of the audience at the Marina Pavilion – 1400 people – enjoyed the concert of the legendary The Brand New Heavies. Most positive surprises were delivered by Tingvall Trio and Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Quartet. The favorites of the audience were also Estonian Oleg Pissarenko, Villu Veski-Tiit Kalluste NordicSounds with guests, Joel-Rasmus Remmel Trio, Raul Vaigla Aces of Basses, Duo Raivo Tafenau-Meelis Vind, Tõnis Mägi’s blues project and the vocal gala of Estonian best female jazz singers. Around 14 000 people visited the concerts of Jazzkaar in Tallinn.
The cooperation with sunny weather made the free concerts day at Kalamaja district memorable with its ten concerts in special places from Marina Pavilion to Estonia Piano Factory and Kalamaja Park. The events of the day were visited by some 3000 people. On the streets, squares, windows, trams and other unusual concert-places of Tallinn young jazz musicians and even big bands surprised people – more than 40 events took place during the City Space project. Many concerts brought a full house also in other Estonian towns and cities, in Viljandi took place a little 5-concert sub-festival Jazzkaareke. Estonian Jazz Awards were presented for the sixth time.
The biggest supporters of Jazzkaar are Estonian Culture Endowment, the Ministry of Culture, Tallinn City and Elion. Main partners are Eesti Päevaleht, ERGO, My City Hotel, Estonian Air, Tallink, Aktaprint and Info-Auto. The festival took place also thanks to the production partner RGB, Tallinn Harbor, Lavazza and many others, also many foreign and local institutions.
The festival is ever-grateful to the tireless 120 volunteers! Huge thanks to everyone who made this festival happen and also to our fantastic audience!
Until new exciting meetings!
Organizers of Jazzkaar