Forum-fest JAZZ ACROSS BORDERS was held with the support of RMU

The international forum-fest Jazz Across Borders (JAB) was held online on November 13 and 14. The event was held with the support of the Russian Musical Union and the Directorate of educational programs in the field of culture and art of the Moscow Department of Culture. The forum brought together over 10,000 people from 70 countries of the world.

Jazz Across Borders is the first and only professional platform in Russia for meeting of representatives of the domestic and international jazz community. The founder and artistic director of JAB is a famous jazz musician, Honored Artist of Russia Igor Butman.

The program of the forum-fest consisted of five parts: JAB Conference (discussion sessions, round tables, public talk), JAB Workshops (master classes by top musicians), Matchmaking sessions, Listening sessions and the Student Bands Competition.

The leading speakers of the business program were: Emmy Award winner, composer and producer, dean of Berklee College of Music Stephen Webber (USA), Dean of the Russian Academy of Music named after the Gnesins Alexander Ryzhinsky (Russia), columnist for DownBeat and JazzTimes magazines Allen Morrison (USA), WBGO radio host Sheila Anderson (USA), music program coordinator Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club Paul Pace (UK), program director of TSFJAZZ, Nice Jazz Fest and Parisian jazz Duc des Lombards Club Sebastian Vidal (France), General Director of the Europe Jazz Network Giambattista Tofoni (Italy), Director of the Turkish Jazz Society and Ankara Jazz Festival Tuce Alpaslan (Turkey), Director of the Amersfoort Jazz Festival Alexander Beats (Holland), General Director of the Trondheim Jazz Festival Ernst-Viggo Sandbakk (Norway) and many others.

One of the central events of the business program was a public talk on the theme “Jazz In The Era Of Change”, in which the founder and artistic director of JAB, Honored Artist of Russia Igor Butman, and winner of nine Grammy Awards and Pulitzer Prize, Winton Marsalis from the USA, took part.

Special guests of JAB Workshops were jazz pianist and producer, winner of three Grammy Awards and one Emmy Award Robert Glasper (USA), and one of the best jazz singers of our time, winner of five Grammy awards Diane Reeves (USA).

Also within the framework of JAB Online, the Second Competition of Student Jazz Groups was held. This year, more than 50 applications for participation were received, seven were selected for the finals. The highest scores of the jury were given to the Quartet of Andrei Bataleev from the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music having received the main prize – an invitation to perform at the IX International Festival “The Future of Jazz” in 2021.