site.btaProgramme of 27th Bansko Jazz Festival Announced

An Alley of Fame, eight evenings with musicians from 18 countries and a stage for young talents feature on the programme of the 27th Bansko Jazz Festival. The programme was presented by Bansko Mayor Stoycho Banenski and FEST-BG head Iliyana Shtereva at a news conference on Monday. The 27th edition of the festival will take place from August 3 to 10.

Within the festival, 135 musicians from 18 countries will give 23 concerts. The youth stage in Bansko Park will present 45 participants from three countries with 21 concerts.

The festival will open with the Jazz and Legends project featuring a performance by Camellia Todorova and Vassil Petrov, the leading names in Bulgarian jazz. They will be accompanied by the Big Band of the National Music Academy led by Mihail Yosifov. 

This year's festival will include an Alley of Fame, implemented with the support of the National Culture Fund, Shtereva said. The plaques will depict prominent Bulgarian musicians and will be made of granite, Banenski specified. They will be made within the framework of the plein air event Music in Stone.

A competittion for projects is open until the end of April; which five figures will be part of the Alley of Fame will become clear in late May. One of them will necessarily be of the founder of this jazz festival, Dr Emil Iliev, added Shtereva.

For another year, the festival's programme will include a jazz academy. It is supported by the Ministry of Culture, which has recognized the academy as a valuable element of the Bansko Jazz Festival, said Shtereva. Traditionally, musicians from the big stage will hold workshops with the young musicians from the academy.

The Bansko Jazz Festival will present projects by Bulgarian musicians who have been living and working abroad for years but are little known in their homeland. FEST-BG with their new partners from the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad have an ambition to expand this programme for Bulgarian children who live abroad, aiming to bring them back to Bulgaria, Shtereva added.