Dear colleagues,
We are happy to invite you to this year’s World Jazz Conference on Friday, October 22. Whilst we had high hopes for the world to allow international travel to our usual standards, we opt for a hybrid model this year to maximise opportunities for international input. Wherever you are, we want you to join the conversation!

This year’s conference touches upon a number of topics and welcomes friends old and new to present their ideas.

At 1pm Amsterdam time, that’s 2pm Moscow, 8pm New York/Ontario, Amersfoort Jazz director Alexander Beets and JazzNL board member Michel Peek kick off this year’s meeting of minds and bring longtime friend and co-founder Andre le Roux of IKS Consulting into the mix for a conversation with Gwen Ansell who did the study on the impact of Covid for us last year. André and Gwen will discuss a broad outline of what’s happening in the world of jazz discussing together with Paul Pace (Ronnie Scott’s), Adam Simmons (The Usefulness of Art), Gail Boyd (G B Artist Management),  André le Roux (IKS), Mantwa Chinoamadi (SB Joy of Jazz) and Alexander Beets (Amersfoort World Jazz Festival). Around 2 pm we will  welcome in the studio Anita Verheggen and Fleurine Verloop. Anita will talk about the support programs for culture and Fleurine will talk about a EU Labor Union survey she conducted to further explore the position of musicians in Europe. 

At 2:30pm, our partnership manager and known EU publicist Arlette Hovinga hosts a panel about promotion in times of, and post, the covid era. We will introduce independent journalists Allen Morrison (DownBeat, Jazztimes) and Raul da Gama (JazzDaGama) and talk to educator, entrepreneur and promoter Matt Fripp. What has a year and a half of livestreams and virtually no international touring changed for artists looking to promote their music, and their brand as a whole? 

Of course, talking about our network and our online opportunities during covid times begs the question how festivals and venues have experienced these odd times, and how they managed to stay afloat. What have we learned, how do we deal with not being able to hire the usual big names, has our perception of the ideal festival lineup changed and have we truly embraced hybrid festival models? Next to the opening interview with Georgina Javor from Jazz at Lincoln Center we are excited to introduce no less than two new WJN members to you in this panel; Ania Giniewska, the producer of Szczecin Jazz(PL), and Fabio Lannino of SiciliaJazz (IT). 

All in all, we have tried to compile a versatile and compact program that offers different angles on our current situation – and on our collective future. Naturally, we look forward to welcoming you all in person in 2022, but for now, please be welcome to join us for what is hopefully the last purely hybrid discussion about the future of our network, our international music scene, and our individual circumstances. Let’s start conversations that help push our community forward, that increase international mobility, and, not unimportantly, that will empower us to meet in person again in 2022.

Best regards,
The organization