Jazz Baltica is a

jazz festival This is a list of notable jazz festivals around the world. Historic jazz festivals Jazz festivals by country The following is an incomplete list of notable jazz festivals, including both current and defunct festivals of note. Africa Angol ...

which was started in 1990. Up until 2011 it was held every summer in Schloss Salzau (Salzau Palace) near

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

, Germany, and the coast of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. In 2009 the festival was directed by

Bengt-Arne Wallin Bengt-Arne Wallin (13 July 1926 in Linköping – 23 November 2015) was a Swedish jazz composer, arranger, trumpeter, and flugelhorn player who played jazz influenced by Swedish traditional folk music. He also wrote film scores. Biography Betwe ...

and in 2012, Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren took over as artistic director and it was moved to the Evers-Werft shipyard at the harbor of Niendorf, a Baltic Sea resort near

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

. The festival attracts jazz musicians from around the globe and is a noted event on the yearly jazz calendar. Artists who have played at the festival include:

Wolfgang Dauner Wolfgang Dauner (; 30 December 1935 – 10 January 2020) was a German jazz pianist who co-founded the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble. He worked with Hans Koller, Albert Mangelsdorff, Volker Kriegel and Ack van Rooyen and composed for radio, tele ...

Marcin Wasilewski (pianist) Marcin Wasilewski (born 1975 in Slawno, Zachodniopomorskie) is a Polish pianist and composer. Wasilewski established a musical partnership with bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz as the Simple Acoustic Trio in the earl ...

Kate McGarry Katherine Genevieve McGarry, known professionally as Kate McGarry, is a jazz vocalist. Career McGarry grew up in an Irish-American family with nine siblings in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, graduat ...

, and Nils Landgren, It differs from most other festivals in its intimacy and the access that visitors have to the musicians. The festival has changed its focus to feature primarily musicians from

Northern Germany Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...

, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. Between 20–23 June 2019 approximately 19,000 visitors celebrated the 29th edition of JazzBaltica in Timmendorfer Strand - 2000 more than 2018. Since 2002, Jazz Baltica has been conducted as part of the

Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival The Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival is a classical music festival held each summer throughout the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. History The festival was founded in 1986 by German concert pianist Justus Frantz. In 2006, the 2 ...

. Until 2011 the festival's founder Rainer Haarmann was the musical director for most years. The festival takes place around the last weekend of June.Jazz Baltica Website
/ref> What makes this festival so unique is its intimate nature due to the relatively small concert venues, which limits the number of attendees to several thousand on any given day. This gives attendees unusually close-up access to jazz artists. The festival starts Friday afternoon and runs through Sunday night. It concentrates on music from bebop through to contemporary jazz with a smattering of world music. Besides the concerts that require tickets, there are also free midday concerts by young local musicians and free concerts in the late evening.

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Jazz festivals in Germany Culture of Schleswig-Holstein Tourist attractions in Schleswig-Holstein

Further reading

References

External links