ST. PETERSBURG, Jul. 28The First International St. Petersburg Jazz Festival, which involved more than 600 musicians, was attended by more than 200,000 spectators, the organizers reported.
«From July 22 to 28, the First International St. Petersburg Jazz Festival was held in the cultural capital for the first time, which brought together more than 600 musicians from Russia and abroad and more than 200,000 spectators,» the report said.
As part of the festival, 160 concerts were held with the participation of Russian and foreign artists at open and indoor concert venues in the city, including the Yusupov Garden, the St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonic, the Tauride Garden, Arts Square, Sevkabel Port, and Lake Dolgoe Park. Most concerts were free to attend.
Headliners of the festival were: Igor Butman and the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, Gonzalo Rubalcaba (USA), Khibla Gerzmava, L «One (Jazz Set), Ildar Abdrazakov, Larisa Dolina, Yuri Bashmet, Alexey Arkhipovsky, Jazzirama (Uzbekistan), Oleg Akkuratov Trio, Nadine Adrianna Trio (Indonesia), TJF (Thailand), Anya Chipovskaya and the Oleg Lundstrem Jazz Orchestra, Varvara Ubel, Cenk Erdoğan & Akra Jazz Band (Turkey), Daniil Kramer, Fantine, Billy`s Band, Igor Sklyar and Jazz Classic Community
«»St. Petersburg has been living with jazz for many years. And we have all been waiting for such a large-scale event, uniting all musicians and lovers of improvised music. Jazz Week has covered the city: more than 200 thousand Petersburgers and guests of the northern capital visited our concerts. Next year, we expect to cover palace venues in the suburbs of St. Petersburg and make the program even more intense and multifaceted,» said the festival president Igor Butman, whose words are quoted in the message.
During the festival, an educational lecture hall was organized in the Yusupov Garden, where visitors had the opportunity to learn more about jazz from musicians and participate in master classes. During the educational program, 18 lectures and two creative meetings took place, which were broadcast in real time on social networks.
The festival also featured a large-scale club program at the Jazz Philharmonic, Igor Butman Jazz Club, JFC, 48 Chairs, and The Hat clubs.
It is noted that online broadcasts of the festival events were watched by more than 1.5 million people throughout Russia.
On July 28, at the closing concert of the festival at the St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonic named after D. D. Shostakovich, Igor Butman summed up the results of the First All-Russian Jazz Composers Competition. More than 100 applications from 16 Russian cities were submitted for participation: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Tula, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Novosibirsk, Novokuznetsk, Penza and others. The winner of the competition in the “Jazz Song” nomination was Elizaveta Kaboeva from Rostov-on-Don with the composition “In a Dream”, in the “Instrumental Jazz Piece” nomination — Mark Liberzon from Perm with the composition “Make it funky”.
The festival was supported by the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture and the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives.