In 2021 we are celebrating the 19th edition of Festa do Jazz, a jazz festival made by and for Portuguese musicians, showcasing the variety and the best talent in contemporary improvised music from Portugal.
For the second year the festival will take place at the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) in Lisbon. Due to the ongoing pandemic situation, this year the festival will take place in a hybrid format which means that audience is allowed to all concerts and other activities (with all the current security measures in place) but the event will also be streamed live by our partner RTP Palco and the recordings will be available on their digital platform after the festival as well. (https://www.rtp.pt/play/palco/)
Apart from the iconic CCB venue, this year’s edition will take over two additional spaces: at Espaço Espelho D´Água, in walking distance to the CCB, we will be hosting the National Encounter of Portuguese Jazz Schools and this year our jam sessions will return and take place for the first time at the infamous Livraria Ler Devagar, located in the nearby LX Factory compound.
We are very happy to announce that that this year we will once again have the National Encounter of Jazz Schools on site, live: it is a joy to return to welcome the young people of various schools from all over Portugal. In 2020, this all-important part of the annual festival program had to take place in a digital format, but this year we are able to return to an on-site event format, of course with all the necessary security measures in place.
For the first time we have invited two guest curators in order to come up with new programming ideas. This year we are kicking off this new and exciting experiment with two of the up-and-coming jazz heavyweights of the Portuguese jazz scene: composer and singer Beatriz Nunes as well as composer and drummer Pedro Melo Alves, who each curate a concert. Since last year we are promoting concerts as encounters of musicians that do not perform together on a regular basis - this year we have composer and guitarist André Fernandes as a coordinator of the encounter he called FOCA.
In this edition, we will continue to encourage debates and the construction of community regarding the Portuguese jazz scene. For this purpose, we are hosting two conversations at Espelho d'Água, one about Teaching Jazz in Portugal, and the other about internationalization of Portuguese jazz.
As the last Jazz festival of the year in Portugal, the program also followed the elementary principle of giving visibility and the opportunity for public presentation to groups that had not been present at other jazz festivals in Greater Lisbon this year. Festa do Jazz, which has always been at the forefront of social issues, also continues to highlight gender equality in its programming, giving female performers and leaders a platform to present their projects.
Finally, we will host another edition of the RTP / Festa do Jazz Awards, that celebrate the best of Portuguese jazz in 5 different categories: Upcoming Artist, Upcoming Group, Musician of the Year, Group of the Year and Merit Award. We will also present Lurdes Júdice Awards for the National Encounter of Jazz Schools, highlighting the talented musicians that stand out in the performances of the jazz school combos.
