The 18th Annual Istanbul Jazz Festival | July 1st-19th, 2011
Lizz Wright
The 18th Istanbul Jazz Festival, organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, and sponsored for the 14th time by Garanti Bank, will take place between July 1-19.
The 18th Istanbul Jazz Festival will again fill the heart of Istanbul with jazz with over 40 concerts and more than 300 local and foreign artists. This year, the concerts in the Istanbul Jazz Festival will take place in classic venues such as the Cemil Topuzlu Open Air Theatre, Archaeological Museum, Hagia Eirene Museum, Istanbul Modern, IstinyePark, Salon and The Marmara Esma Sultan as well as at Tersane Stage and santralistanbul Kıyı Amphi which will be used as a concert venue for the first time. Including the venues at the Tünel Festival, the Festival will spread to different points of the city with a total of 25 different event venues.
Legendary names and new projects will be in Istanbul this July including the world premiere of ‘Tribute to Miles’ with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Marcus Miller; ‘Sing the Truth!’ Tribute Night with Anjelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright (pictured above); unforgettable songs with Randy Crawford, Joe Sample and Nathalie Cole; Javier Limon’s ‘Mujeres de Agua’ project with Buika, Aynur Doğan, La Shica and Sandra Carrasco as well as Paul Simon, Joss Stone, Jamie Callum, Matt Bianco, Patrick Wolf and many more.
The second of the Tünel Feast, the event which took place within the Istanbul Jazz Festival last year for the first time and drew great interest, will meet the music-lovers in the first weekend of the festival with its yet more comprehensive programme compared to the previous year. Within the Tünel Feast which will take place on Saturday, 2 July, a “festival within the festival” will continue until late hours with concerts, workshops, special exhibitions, treats and events in the streets and many different venues of Beyoğlu, Şişhane, Galata and Asmalımescit areas alongside the main stages to be established at Tünel and Galata squares.
One of the new and most interesting events of this year’s festival will be the night entitled “A Strange Place for Jazz” taking its name from an album (Strange Place for Snow) of e.s.t, the band of the famous jazz musician Esbjörn Svensson whom we have lost recently. In this special concert which will take place within the scope of the festival at the historical shipyard in Haliç on the night of Saturday, 9 July, three world famous bands expanding the horizons of jazz music with their innovative and creative projects will take the stage successively. Along with the concerts of Tonbruket, the new band of the e.s.t bassist Dan Berglund, “Love Trio, ” İlhan Erşahin’s project including Arto Tunçboyacıyan as guest artist, and Soulbop, which will bring together the famous fusion band with Bill Evans and Randy Brecker, two stars of the jazz world, and Medeski, Martin & Wood on the same stage, the Tersane Stage will turn into an indispensible festival venue for jazz-lovers with different activities and treats throughout the night.