The Europe Jazz Network (EJN) revealed the winner of the 8th EJN Award for Adventurous Programming. The Award goes to Jazz Fest Sarajevo!
The Award winner was selected through a two-phase process: firstly all the 140+ EJN member organisations were asked to indicate a potential award winner (not necessarily an EJN member) through a nomination system, and secondly a selected jury of EJN members and other respected music professionals chose the winner out of the resulting list of 21 nominated promoters (festivals, clubs or concert venues).
Comment from the Award Jury 2019:
“Jazz Fest Sarajevo is an icon of creativity with an adventurous, open-minded approach, producing a full-hearted event which stays in the memory of each musician or visitor forever. It seems very fitting this year to give the EJN Award for Adventurous Programming to a festival that brilliantly managed to combine inspiring music and the creation of a strong community around it. It’s a unique experience born from a simple idea during the war and is now getting well-deserved international recognition in times of peace. We commend the festival for keeping courage in extremely hard conditions in order to fulfil the core idea behind it: better life for all.”
EJN Award Jury 2019: Nadin Deventer (Jazzfest Berlin/Berliner Festspiele, Germany), Jan Bang (Punkt Festival, Norway), Emily Jones (Cheltenham Jazz Festival, UK), Danielle Oosterop (Oosterop Music Management, Netherlands) and Bogdan Benigar (Jazz Festival Ljubljana/Cankarjev dom, previous EJN Award winner, Slovenia).
Previous winners of the EJN Award for Adventurous Programming have been: Jazz Festival Ljubljana in Slovenia (2018), Tampere Jazz Happening in Finland (2017), Manchester Jazz Festival in the UK (2016), Moers Festival in Germany (2015), Jazz em Agosto in Portugal (2014), Bimhuis in the Netherlands (2013) and 12 Points Festival in Ireland (2012).
The EJN Award 2019 for Adventurous Programming will be celebrated during the 6th European Jazz Conference taking place in Novara, Italy, between 12 and 15 September 2019 as well as during a public ceremony held at the 23rd Jazz Fest Sarajevo, taking place this year between 7 and 10 November 2019.