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Palace of Arts - Trafó -
BJC - Ráday str. |
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8-12th September 2010
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In its eighth year BMC's annual jazz festival (previously called MOL Jazz Festival) has rejuvenated itself as Jazzforum Budapest, with the considerable support of the new main sponsor Hello HD.
The festival still keeps to its traditional remit of providing a comprehensive cross-section of the of the actual flag bearers of jazz. During five days of music the styles will range from the widely accepted variations of the mainstream to the more experimental sounds appreciated by the cognoscenti, while giving nearly equal room to well-known artists and the up-and-coming young Turks.
Three main venues will accommodate 16 concerts which, with one exception, will be joint ventures by Hungarian and foreign musicians but even that odd gig will be a co-production of musicians from various countries. Through these joint efforts the festival aims to show where is jazz at in Hungary today, how we fit into an international context and, within that, how can we still have our own individual voice.
The concerts of the opening and closing day will be held, as usual, in the Palace of Arts. During the three days in between there will be two concerts daily at the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts. These productions will present mainly the cutting edge of the genre. The early evening concerts in Trafó will be followed by two predominantly mainstream gigs at the Budapest Jazz Club, where the proceedings will end in a jam session on Friday and Saturday stretching well into the late hours of the night.
This year's productions will stage mostly unique line-ups that will not have been seen before. We'll also accommodate several special encounters between musical worlds that have been hitherto considered distant from each other.
For nearly a whole decade Jazzforum Budapest has been dedicated to presenting modern European jazz. Accordingly, the programme for 2010 will also centre on the outstanding artists of the Continent. However, alongside performers from the, in jazz terms, dominant West European countries, musicians of Polish, Serbian and Turkish origin will also take the stage. The cradle of jazz, America will be represented by two joint projects with local musicians.
The special focus of this year's festival is provided by the year-and-a-half of consecutive EU presidency by Spain, Belgium and Hungary. Eight performances staged at the special venues will come under the heading of the Trio events.
Smaller scale but nevertheless important series can be enjoyed at Trafó, the venue for contemporary jazz concerts where, for three days running, the link between innovative musicians from the three definitive European jazz-scenes - those of France, Germany and Holland - will be provided by a Hungarian instrument, the cimbalom played by one of its leading exponents, Miklós Lukács.
Budapest Music Center, the organisation responsible for devising and organising the festival programme, in its capacity as a record company has undertaken to record those productions that carry the promise of international success. This undertaking is all the more pronounced in the present programme as the festival presents eight premier concerts of new BMC albums.
One of the definitive and colourful features of the jazz festival has always been the series of free gigs going on in the clubs, cafés and little theatres of Ráday Street where mainly the younger, local bands strut their stuff. This year is no exception and during the middle three days of the festival four such venues will stage jazz simultaneously, so that another 12 concerts will delight music lovers.
