The grand finale of the Jazzkaar spring season takes place in cooperation with Jazz’n’Motion concert series on May 21st in the warm and sunny Lillepaviljon! On stage will be the beloved Finnish experimentalist jazz and techno trio RinneRadio and the hit of Tallinn Music Week Kirtana Rasa.
The Sunday night concert by soul diva Angie Stone made people sing, dance and stand up for almost two hours straight. It was a live show filled with amazing energy that hasn’t been seen around here for quite some time. The jubilee festival reached its dignified finale.
The concerts of the 20th Jazzkaar took place from April 18.-26 in Tallinn, Tartu, Viljandi, Pärnu, Haapsalu, Saku, Rõuge, Kuressaare, Paide, Elva, Türi and Rapla. Top musicians from 15 countries performed, giving a total of 57 concerts to more than 15 000 music lovers.
For the third time the jazz awards were presented to prominent musicians during Jazzkaar. The main award – the Elion Jazz Award was given to saxophone and flute player, conductor, arranger, lecturer Siim Aimla, the Young Jazz Talent Award was given to the singer Sofia Rubina and the first ever Jazz Promoter Award receiver was lecturer Ain Agan from the Viljandi Culture Academy of the University of Tartu.
The special favourites of the Jazzkaar audience appeared to be Angie Stone, Al Jarreau, Will Calhoun, Paquito D’Rivera and Napoleon Maddox from the USA, Ana Moura from Portugal, Joao Bosco from Brazil, Felix Lajko from Hungary, Cro-Magnon from Japan and Us3 from England. Musicians from Estonia and the USA cooperated to bring to life the Jazzkaar Dream Band just for this festival. The head of the band, the trombone virtuoso Ray Anderson, was the main performer of the first Jazzkaar in 1990, and this time he was the jazz ambassador for the Jazz month of April.
Many Estonian musicians, such as Villu Veski, Tanel Ruben, Andres Mustonen, presented their new repertoire at the festival.
The Classic Radio and Radio 4 brought eleven of the festival’s concerts to radio listeners throughout Estonia. In a live broadcast European music lovers heard the ethno-jazz duo Tuule Kann and Jaak Sooäär. The culture news of the Estonian Television and the Estonian Radio kept the listeners up to date with the events of the festival. The events of Jazzkaar were covered by Finnish, Russian, Spanish, British and Norwegian jazz magazines and portals.
On the Jazzkaar web page young journalists and photographers reviewed the concerts, collected the audience’s opinions and published images from the festival. For the first time the Jazzkaar blog reflected the events of the festival and enabled several dozen music lovers from different walks of life to publish their impressions and memories. Around fifty young volunteers interested in music helped with the organization of the festival.
The main sponsors and supporters of the jubilee festival were the Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment, Tallinn Cultural Heritage Department, Elion, Sokos hotel Viru, Eesti Päevaleht, Ergo insurance, Estonian National Broadcasting and the Embassy of the USA.
The organizers of the Tallinn International Festival 2009 Erm, Marju Kask, Anu Luik and Ingrid Põldoja and the project manager of the Jazz Month Madli Parts thank all the musicians, partners, journalists, all the people who helped the organize the festival as well as the excellent jazz audience!
The grand finale of the Jazzkaar spring season takes place in cooperation with Jazz’n’Motion concert series on May 21st in the warm and sunny Lillepaviljon! On stage will be the beloved Finnish experimentalist jazz and techno trio RinneRadio and the hit of Tallinn Music Week Kirtana Rasa. Tickets (295 EEK) from Piletilevi ticket offices!