Green Pilot Tours

Sweden | 31 March – 4 April 2025

Tour dates & venues
- 31 March – Workshop at Academy of Music and Drama, Gothenburg (SE)
- 31 March – Musik i Lerum, Lerum (SE)
- 1 April – Jazz i Halmstad, Halmstad (SE)
- 2 April – Workshop at Fridhems Folkhögskola, Svalöv (SE)
- 2 April – Jazz i Helsingborg, Helsingborg (SE)
- 3 April – Jönköpings Jazzklubb, Jönköping (SE)

This Green Pilot Tour brought the Irene Reig Quartet to Sweden through a collaboration between Göteborg Artist Center (GAC) / Knutpunkt and EJN member Taller de Músics, with a strong focus on long-term impact, knowledge exchange and sustainable touring practices.

Beyond concerts, the tour placed particular emphasis on education and dialogue. Irene Reig led workshops at the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg and at Fridhems Folkhögskola, engaging directly with students and young musicians. These activities allowed the project to connect not only with audiences, but also with the next generation of artists, fostering deeper conversations around artistic practice and environmental responsibility.

As part of the Green Pilot Tour framework, the organisers also recorded a podcast focused on sustainable touring and the creative process. Produced by Sara Aldén, Grammis-winning musician and gender studies scholar, the podcast offered an additional platform to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of greener touring models, expanding the project’s reach beyond live performances.

From a sustainability perspective, the tour closely followed EJN Green Pilot Tour guidelines. Most travel was carried out by train, with the exception of a short car journey required to reach Fridhems Folkhögskola — a conscious trade-off made to ensure meaningful engagement with students in a rural setting. Catering throughout the tour was vegetarian, featuring homemade food, locally sourced ingredients and freshly baked bread, reinforcing the connection between sustainability and everyday practice.

Irene Reig actively embraced the project’s values, speaking openly during the tour about the importance of sustainable choices and the responsibility of artists within the wider climate context. As she reflected:

“Traveling by train is more comfortable for musicians on tour, and we're happy to do it this way—it allows us to contribute, even in a small way, to protecting the environment. It's really important to support initiatives like this so we can all become more aware of the reality of global climate change.”

Despite the last-minute cancellation of the final concert in Växjö, the tour highlighted the strength of collaboration and solidarity within the network. The ability to adapt quickly, rework travel plans and rely on mutual support among organisers reinforced one of the core lessons of the Green Pilot Tours: sustainable touring is not just about logistics, but about building resilient, supportive ecosystems around artists.

This Green Pilot Tour demonstrated how greener touring models can be integrated naturally into artistic work — through practice, repetition and shared responsibility — until sustainability becomes not an exception, but simply part of how touring is done.

Social media
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