The 47th Turku Jazz Festival took place a week ago -- now for the first time as a part of the project Jazz City Turku. Artistic and financial aspects met rather than clashed: a top-class Finnish jazz drew more audience than ever before.
Kicking off on the Turku Night of the Arts on 18 August, the 2016 edition of Turku Jazz Festival focussed on high-quality Finnish jazz music, delivering such topical artists as Jukka Perko Hurmio 2.0, Nina Mya, Dalindèo and the Finnish Jazz Federation Jubilee Orchestra in the atmospheric milieu of the inner courtyard of the Brewery Restaurant Koulu. Local colour was provided amply by bands like Jusu Heinonen Gyl5, Aura Flow, Kuiper Trio and Turku Jazz Orchestra.
A new concert concept was the Turku Jazz in Flames club series that featured such honorary guests as Eero Koivistoinen and Olli Ahvenlahti. These popular late night concerts proved a great addition to the festival programme.
Turku Jazz Festival producer Jussi Fredriksson describes this year’s festival as follows:
“The networks that we have gained through the project Jazz City Turku have given a great boost to this year’s festival. We managed to book a host of very interesting Finnish artists and bands, and I think that this year’s line-up was first class artistically. To our joy, the audience seemed to agree, since the number of tickets sold topped all previous records. In total we are very happy with how we did this year. With such a successful festival edition behind us, it will be easier to plan next years’ festivals, too.”
Turku Jazz Festival 2017 will take place on 17 - 20 August 2017.