Trade fair jazzahead! 2021 takes place digitally

Partner Country Canada 2022

After careful consideration and as a result of the official travel ban of the Canadian government for Canadian citizens to European countries, we and our Canadian partners have decided to postpone Canada’s participation as a partner country until 2022. This decision also results in the cancellation of the festival events, including the festival opening at Theater Bremen and the gala concert at Die Glocke. The showcase selection of the Canadian Night will be carried over to 2022.

As part of the digital jazzahead! 2021, Canada will have a few surprises in store.

Showcase festival 2021

The showcase selection from the year 2020 will be carried over into 2021. 32 bands from Germany, Europe and overseas are invited to produce their showcase concert live in Bremen, if the situation in April allows. For cases where this is foreseeable not possible, jazzahead! plans alternatives, which make an integration of the concert appearances into the live stream of the jazzahead! digital possible. The live stream will initially only be available to registered professional participants and exhibitors, but the general public will also have the opportunity to listen to the concerts after a time delay. Should the public be allowed to attend the concerts live in April, we will offer tickets and provide access to the concerts at short notice.

Stay up to date: the jazzahead! Blog

To shorten the time until jazzahead! 2021, we recommend a visit to our jazzahead! Blog. Since August this year, the blog has been a place where texts, videos and podcasts revolve around people and topics of the international jazz scene or where we present portraits of selected countries and regions and their jazz scenes. For example, the Who’s Zooming Who series is an exciting way to get to know current jazz productions from Germany. In this series we ask two personalities in loose succession to give their current recommendations for Jazz made in Germany.
Click here for the jazzahead! Blog.

Virtual Sessions for registered participants

Our monthly “Virtual Sessions” on selected professional topics are aimed specifically at registered participants of the 2021 edition. The upcoming dates are:
– December 17, 2020, 3 pm CET: Monetization of concerts on the net: the paid stream
– January 28, 2021, 3 pm CET: Brexit – What’s jazz got to do with it?
Access to the Virtual Sessions is included in a jazzahead! registration. In December and January, however, we will make the Virtual Sessions publicly available.

Live Panels on Facebook

Free of charge and for all jazz fans – Our monthly facebook live panels. The next topics are:
– 10 December 2020, 3 pm CET: Spotlight on country scenes: Greece
In our fifth jazzahead! live panel we will set the focus on the jazz scene in Greece that 2018 showcasing artist Petros Klampanis described in an interview as “full of muscial ability, creativity and enthusiasm”. The country is known for its rich cultural landscape but rather unknown for a significant and export-friendly jazz scene in an international context. All the more reasons to have a closer look at the Greek scene! With: Tania Giannouli and Helen Kontos
– 14 January 2021, 3 pm CET: Spotlight on selected city scenes II: Cologne
On the next day you can find each of the panels as a video on our jazzahead! Blog.

Survey by the German Jazz Union on the effects of the Corona crisis on jazz musicians

The German Jazz Union and its European partners are calling for artists to take part in a survey on the economic and creative effects of the Corona crisis on the professional and private lives of jazz musicians in Europe. The aim is to obtain concrete data on the situation of jazz musicians in European countries in order to coordinate and articulate common political demands at both national and European level.

The opinion and feedback of all jazz musicians will help to find a common voice for jazz musicians in Europe.
Take part in the survey now!

Deutscher Jazzpreis celebrates its premiere in 2021

The Deutscher Jazzpreis will be awarded for the first time in June 2021 by Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Monika Grütters. This music prize from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and Initiative Musik creates public awareness about outstanding and inspiring performances from the German and international jazz music scenes. Applications in eleven categories are possible until January 10, 2021. More information can be found here. Special national and international artistic achievements in jazz will receive awards in 31 categories. 28 of these 31 awards are endowed with prize monies of at least 10,000 euros.

Large Evaluation

For the occasion of fifteenth anniversary of the jazzahead! Trade Fair, we will conduct a comprehensive evaluation to determine the significance of the event for the German jazz scene in an international context. Bands that have performed at the German Jazz Expo or the European Jazz Meeting within the last five years will be interviewed about their career development. The survey also focuses on the German jazz scene as a whole: interviews with experts will be conducted to examine its development since the German Jazz Expo was founded. We will present the results at jazzahead! digital 2021.