Jazz Up Your Winter!
There wouldn’t be a Melbourne winter without its notorious global Jazz Festival. Known for attracting international and homegrown jazz ability into Melbourne to connect with viewers in some of the city’s most iconic areas, annually that the audience grows in numbers and variety while coming together to experience jazz tunes from around the world.
This year’s lineup features some of the best Australian and international musicians of the time, performing over 10 days from May 31 — June 9 in nearly 100 events, such as 10 Australian premiers and 8 Festival exclusives.
Quite a few exclusive Australian premieres are contained in today’s Masters program. From the legendary vocalist Cassandra Wilson in her first Australian appearance in almost a decade, the multi-Grammy-Award winner Chucho Valdés and his Afro-Cuban Messengers, to some highly sought-after modern big band composers Maria Schneider and Darcy James Argue, followed by the coveted New Orleans masters Rebirth Brass Band, and the world premiere of Australia’s very own Joe Camilleri, Vince Jones, along with Vika Bull performing Here Comes the Night: Tunes from the Van Morrison Songbook.
As always, there’s a lot more to pick from. For more low-key crowd, Melbourne‘s jazz clubs may play host to a stellar line-up of Club Sessions more than ten nights featuring an extraordinary array of talented musicians. A vibrant new show, Explorations in Jazz, will bring together musicians in the forefront of contemporary jazz including the Australian premieres of hot new collective Snarky Puppy, indie-rock, hip, jazz combo Kneebody and 2012 Festival sensation Jamire coming together with his new band ERIMAJ. Another new initiative, Unleash the Best, will observe schools entering the greatest online and live rock, pop, big band, jazz and blues, world music and electronic beats band competition with $50,000 to be won in prizes.
Frequent festival-goers may anticipate the yearly favorite events coming to the program this year, like the ACMI Jazz on Film, and over 25 free events such as the much-loved The Cave.
Ultimately, you will find freebees galore. With daily free concerts at Federation Square, the hugely popular Soundwalks walking tours, and master classes with visiting international musicians that you can not miss your chance to get up close and personal with some of the greatest names in the Jazz world.
To view the entire program, visit Melbourne International Jazz Festival site.
Composed by Martina Ellis
