News

07.6.2021

Leipziger Jazztage 2020 awarded as "Festival of the Year".

© German Jazz Award, Fynn Freund

On June 3, the German Jazz Award celebrated its premiere! Outstanding achievements of the national and international jazz scene were honored in a total of 31 categories. The 44th Leipzig Jazz Days "Transitions" were honored as "Festival of the Year". Also nominated were the Jazzfest Berlin and the Moers Festival.

With this award, we are shining the spotlight on the diversity, creativity and communicative power of jazz. The jazz music scene has always built sounding bridges between different cultures, it stands for courage, exchange, cooperation - and is thus a reflection of our pluralistic society.

Minister of State for Culture Prof. Monika Grütters

Despite last year's restrictions in the field of events, the outward look, openness to new impulses and the affirmation of non-uniformity were reflected programmatically in the design of the 44th Leipziger Jazztage. In June we made the decision to redesign the festival, so that a realization under the requirements of the period from October 15 - 24, 2020 seemed realistic. Contrary to the obvious and comfortable, the attention was not limited to the local and the own navel-gazing: Under the newfound festival motto "Transitions," many obstacles were overcome in order to push the envelope of the possible, to illuminate and initiate geographic, cultural, stylistic, and disciplinary processes of change and transition.

The motif of (re)encounter moved into focus: We initiated seven world premieres in new constellations especially for the festival, including a cooperation with the inclusive theater RambaZamba from Berlin. This was complemented by encounters at festival level - three evenings were curated together with the Initiative Leipziger Jazzmusiker, the XJAZZ Festival and the Südtirol Jazzfestival.

In retrospect, it seems almost unreal that 32 concerts in 15 venues could take place in front of a real audience last fall. Accepting a high organizational effort, in the course of the preparations the festival team hardly once questioned whether to dare to organize. The number of concerts was even increased and for the first time we organized parallel events at several locations in order to enable as many people as possible to have access to our concerts in spite of smaller space capacities. Supported by a video podcast that focused on high-quality recordings, in-depth interviews and a post-concert release, we were able to additionally expand the reach of our festival content.

The Leipzig Jazz Days 2020 "Transitions" were an extraordinary experience for everyone involved. More than ever before, we became aware of how essential it is for artists and audiences to be together in the production and reception of music, and how valuable the encounters in the concert context are. We have clearly felt how quickly cultural work becomes precarious, how worthy of protection international and transcultural cooperation is, how much it is our responsibility as established cultural actors to actively shape social change. What follows for us from the crisis is not arbitrariness, but a conscious alignment of the festival with the challenges of our time. For us, the Leipzig Jazz Days 2020 are an example of how jazz in Germany can renew itself across different generations and at the same time connect the latter - of how it remains connectable, diverse and cosmopolitan, in the broadest sense.

The "Festival of the Year" award comes with prize money of €10,000.

  • Text: Jazzclub Leipzig e.V.

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