Turku has seen the formation of a unique coalition, Jazz City Turku. Bringing together three local cultural players, the project aims at fostering regular, year-round concert activities to create jobs to artists and enliven local cultural and economic life.
The Flame Jazz concert series, launched in 2011 when Turku held the title of European Capital of Culture, is in charge of the project and forms one third of it. The two other parties are the local professional big band, Turku Jazz Orchestra, and Finland’s second oldest jazz festival, Turku Jazz Festival. The project is to pilot a new kind of arts production model: with each of the three players having a slightly different in the local jazz scene they complement each other in an effective way. Through regular jazz events in the Turku city centre and on the local cruise ship Jazz City Turku aims at enlivening the local cultural and economic life.
During a project period of three years, the Jazz City Turku brand and a dynamic three-organisation operations model will be created. A higher level of cost-effectiveness will be reached through the synergy of production and marketing; this also helps the audience to keep track of what is on. In 2016, the players will organise almost 70 concerts altogether in different local venues.
Jazz City Turku is mainly funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture that directed a grant to the betterment of freelance artists’ work opportunities. Other supporters include the City of Turku and the Turku Conservatory that provided an office for the project. The concert productions are supported by the Jazz Finland LIVE network. In addition, Jazz City Turku has engaged a number of local businesses as partners.
The new webpage for Jazz City Turku was launched on Friday 22 January. On the same day the first issue of the Jazz City Turku magazine was published and could be found slipped between the pages of newspaper Turun Sanomat. Over the year, Jazz City Turku will launch other projects whose goal is to take local jazz culture closer to the people.