The 35th April Jazz will be held October 27-31 at the Espoo Cultural Center and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA. Last year, the event was completely streamed after the corona pandemic prevented hosting live events. The long wait will soon end when the festival audience finally can come to the concert halls to enjoy performances by domestic and international artists.
The main performers of the festival will be Grammy-winning American tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, who will perform as a soloist with the Polish Marcin Wasilewski Trio, as well as Portuguese fado singer Carminho.
Other international artists performing at the event include Chilean saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who is coming to Finland for the first time with her own band, Norwegian singer-songwriter Bernhoft, who charmed the audience with their previous April Jazz visit, and Danish percussionist legend Marilyn Mazur.
The festival's Finnish repertoire consists of the 2020 jazz-Emma nominees Superposition, Verneri Pohjola Quartet, Mortality, Jussi Lehtonen Quartet and Riitta Paakki Quartet, Lenni-Kalle Taipale celebrating his 25-year artistic career, the festival's host orchestra in Espoo Big Republic together with Jarmo Saari, pianist Aki Rissanen, OK: KO and Peela. Tickets are on sale in Lippupiste's online store and offices.
In addition to live concerts, April Jazz will expand into a hybrid event on the Urban Espoo website, which will feature recordings of the festival's concerts on the virtual stage in October-November. In addition, the program includes the Espoo Big Band's release concert of the album Blood Red, composed by Mikko Hassinen and rated five stars by Helsingin Sanomat. The concerts can be watched free of charge for a week at urbanespoo.fi/lava.
April Jazz is one of the largest jazz festivals in Finland and has been held in Espoo every year since 1987. The event is organized by Espoo Big Band ry.