MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) – The Koktebel Jazz Party, a festival that is being organized by the news agency Rossiya Segodnya with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, will be the first major international cultural event to be held in Crimea.
The festival will be held from September 12-15, and the best jazz groups from across Russia, as well as artists from Brazil, the United States, Israel, Britain, India, Armenia, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands will perform at multiple venues. Tickets will be sold to the concert which will take place on the main stage; the proceeds will go to support the development of the Crimea region.
A breath of new life for jazz in Koktebel.
“I took part in organizing the Koktebel Jazz Festival along with my Ukrainian friends in 2003; jazz has been popular in the city ever since,” noted Dmitri Kiselev, Director General of Rossiya Segodnya. “The 12th annual festival was set to take place this year, but due to the recent events, the guys were forced to move it to the Odessa region. Koktebel cannot be left without jazz, and so the Koktebel Jazz Party will take place to give jazz in the city a breath of new life,” Kiselev said.
Kiselev recalled that the first Koktebel Jazz Festival in 2003 was dedicated to the reconstruction of Voloshin’s House, the museum devoted to the Russian poet Maksim Voloshin. “At that time we had organized the festival on a single stage; everyone liked it, and we decided to continue the tradition. As a result it has become a huge festival, probably one of the largest in the former Soviet Union. Our task right now is to pick up the baton. We wish our Ukrainian friends and colleagues all the best in carrying out the Koktebel Jazz Festival being held in the Odessa Region,” Kiselev said.
Kiselev noted that the Koktebel Jazz Party will be the largest international cultural event to be held in the Crimea. The event will take place in several venues, where the audience will be able to enjoy high-quality music, get acquainted with contemporary jazz trends, and hear some of their all-time favorite artists.
Each day between 6 and 11 p.m., the main stage, an open air venue located on the beach, will gather the brightest stars of jazz, including Peter Vostokov’s Big Jazz Orchestra, Anton Gorbunov’s jazz quintet, Andrei Kondakov and the Brazil All-Stars, Denis Shvytov and his program “Silver Woman,” Huun-Huur-Tu, Anna Klesun and the group Esh, Vladimir Ivanov and the group Ornithology, the Ivan Farmakovsky Quartet, the Alex Hutchings Band, the Vahagn Hayrapteyan and Anna Buturlina Quartet, Club des Belugas, JVL Big Band, Sergei Kolovnya and Karina Kozhevnikova. Particularly noteworthy headliners for the festival are Yakov Okun and the Deborah Brown International Jazz Quintet, Valery Ponomarev, the We Remember Art Blakey sextet, Tom Harrell, and the Jamal Thomas Band.
Opportunities for young talent
The Koktebel Jazz Party will not only allow audiences to enjoy world-renowned musicians, but will also offer opportunities for young talent to be heard. One of the sites at the festival will be devoted to young musicians. A competition for the selection of participants took place earlier, and a jury determined who would go to the festival. Audiences can enjoy the performances of the winners on the open stage on September 13 and 14 between 2:30 and 5:30 in the afternoon.
Additionally, another stage will be open on the courtyard of Voloshin’s House, especially for lovers of classic blues and jazz. In addition to the performance of the Korvin and Fagot duet, the stage will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the festival, as well as a lecture on the topic, ‘Today he plays jazz –A History of Soviet, Russian, and International Jazz’, accompanied by the Sergei Golovnya Quintet.
One of the Koktebel Jazz Party’s main objectives is to change people’s attitudes toward jazz, and to show that it is not an outdated trend of music, as believed by some. Golovnya, the lead art director of the festival, noted: “We have tried to create a real jazz festival, to get people in a real jazz mood.”
JSC Rossetti is the general partner of the Koktebel Jazz Party. JSC Russian Railways is an official partner. The official air carrier is Transaero. The official ticket partner is Parter.ru
