Copenhagen Jazz Festival

Copenhagen Jazz Festival is one of the largest and most respected music events of its kind in Europe and serves as a rendezvous for trades people, jazz enthusiasts and culture-minded folks in general. With over 250,000 guests per year, the festival is a tourist attraction as well. Copenhagen Jazz Festival takes place all over the the Danish capital in the first week of July. This numbers to 100 venues and approximately 1000 concerts every year. The festival pays tribute to the freedom and fluctuations of jazz music as an art form and its treatment of musical aesthetics. It is the necessity for jazz to try something new, while preserving its more classical expression - that is the basis for its enduring success, making it capable of seducing new audiences, year after year

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Copenhagen Jazz Festival is one of the largest and most respected music events of its kind in Europe and serves as a rendezvous for trades people, jazz enthusiasts and culture-minded folks in general. With over 250,000 guests per year, the festival is a tourist attraction as well. Copenhagen Jazz Festival takes place all over the the Danish capital in the first week of July. This numbers to 100 venues and approximately 1000 concerts every year. The festival pays tribute to the freedom and fluctuations of jazz music as an art form and its treatment of musical aesthetics. It is the necessity for jazz to try something new, while preserving its more classical expression - that is the basis for its enduring success, making it capable of seducing new audiences, year after year. “Jazz represents all music. Everything can be and is expressed through jazz and through the medium improvisation, this is the highest form of being able to create music. Jazz is like the days. Today it was cloudy, now it is sunny. That's jazz. You never know, what is happening,” Sonny Rollins (who played the very first Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 1979) said at his press conference at Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2011 at Marriott Hotel. “People come not only for the memorable musical experiences, but also to enjoy the very special atmosphere that takes over when jazz literally invades Copenhagen,” says festival director Signe Lopdrup. The many free, outdoor concerts around town are one of the festival’s special features and help make Copenhagen Jazz Festival the city’s most important public festival. In addition, the festival has made the presentation of jazz in unique surroundings its trademark. Thus the public is able to enjoy concerts in the city’s best concert halls, on an old, East-German trawler, in a disused printing plant and Carlsberg Brewery’s venerable, stately gardens. So Copenhagen Jazz Festival also provides an excellent occasion for experiencing the city itself - from its best side. The recipe for the festival’s huge popularity is primarily based on a program that aims for high artistic quality and renewal. But it’s very important for us to put together a program that reflects the newest trends both in European jazz and in the rest of the world,” emphasizes Signe Lopdrup, who considers strengthening and developing jazz’ image in general – and Danish jazz in particular – as part of the festival’s task. Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2013 takes place from July 5 to 14.

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