Each year the Europe Jazz Network (EJN) celebrates an organisation - a member or non-member of the network - for its groundbreaking work on social inclusion. We are very happy to announce the winner of this year’s EJN Award for Music & Community: Katowice JazzArt Festival / Miasto Ogrodów (Poland).
The annual EJN Award for Music & Community acknowledges organisations that have:
- enriched people’s lives via participation in music;
- engaged local communities overcoming access barriers of all kinds;
- educated or entertained through musical activities – and have done so for a period of time, as a constant effort to engage with society and its needs.
This year, 17 projects were submitted for consideration for the EJN Award for Music & Community. Many relevant and beautiful projects were presented, and the committee were struck by the variety and the quality of the engagement by our network members with their respective local communities.
Using the criteria mentioned above we have examined those projects thoroughly, and, while it was extremely difficult to choose just one organisation, the Board of Directors of EJN has unanimously selected the Katowice JazzArt Festival/ Miasto Ogrodów (Poland) to receive the EJN award for Music & Community 2022.
The Katowice JazzArt Festival has done outstanding work creating projects for disabled children and also for ongoing work in a local prison - organising concerts for and with the inmates within the walls of the prison.
In addition, the Katowice JazzArt Festival has provided temporary housing in their building for Ukrainian refugees, as well as helping them with their primary needs. As has been shown with COVID-19 and also with this war, solidarity with the most vulnerable in society is vital, and EJN members have been at the forefront of initiatives to engage with, and support the broader community.
We celebrate with the Katowice JazzArt Festival and congratulate them on their remarkable achievements in this important area of work.
Katowice JazzArt Festival now joins the following organisations as recipients of the EJN Award for Music & Community:
- 2020 - JazzDanmark for JazzCamp for Girls and other initiatives (Denmark)
- 2019 - Pasquale Innarella Rustica X Band (Italy)
- 2018 - Banlieues Bleues actions musicales (France)
More info: https://www.europejazz.net/activity/ejn-awards
Photo (c) Radosław Kaźmierczak
