Every year from 8 to 13 August

The International Jazz Festival in Bansko is the biggest summer musical event in Bulgaria. The enormous popularity which the festival enjoys among specialists and fans across the world has turned it into one of the foremost international cultural happenings in the Balkans.

The quaint old town becomes a meeting place for emblematic figures of today’s music world. The concerts are free for the public and the festival is organised with the aid of sponsors.

Traditionally, the programme features styles and groups representing almost all jazz trends. The evening concerts draw huge crowds to the open-air stage on Nikola Vaptsarov Square in downtown Bansko. Throughout the festival week jazz is also played during the day on various smaller stages in the large resort complexes and restaurants.

Ever since its foundation in 1998, Bansko Jazz Fest is held every year from August 8-th to 13-th.

History

The International Jazz Festival is held since 1998.
During this time, world famous stars have performed in Bansko – saxophone players Scott Hamilton (USA), Candy Dulfer (Netherlands), Igor Butman (Russia) and Charles Papazoff (Canada), guitar player Philip Catherine (Belgium) and his band, Axel Zwingenberger (Germany) – boogie pianist number one in Europe, and his rivals Silvan Zingg, Joe Bohnsack and Christoph Steinbach, also known as Boogie Wolf. The concerts of jazz pianists Milcho Leviev, Mario Stantchev, Igor Bril (Russia), Vlodek Pavlik (Poland) and Sergei Manukian (Russia) will remain unforgettable for the public.

Best remembered, however, are probably the star singers who have performed at the festival: Freddie Cole (USA), Clare Teal (Great Britain), Jamie Davis (USA), Irving Louis Lattin (USA), Kasha Rodovich (Poland), Denise Jannah (Netherlands), Camelia Todorova, Vassil Petrov, Yildiz Ibrahimova, Hilda Kazassian, Peter Salchev (Bulgaria).

It is impossible to establish the exact number of the participants – they are countless, coming from four continents.

The programme

Every year, the programme invariably features several main trends.
On the one hand - presentation of the historic roots of jazz. Standard, blues, bebop, swing, Dixieland… On the other – the modern face of “free music”. Although completely different in character, ethno-styles too, have found a place the festival programme. The Krakatau Band from Indonesia, Yehya Khalil Band from Egypt, the local Bulgara, as well as Stoyan and Elitza who were on stage for the premiere of Drumboy. In the ninth edition of the festival Vlatko Stefanovski, Miroslav Tadic and Theodossi Spassov appeared together on stage the first time before Bulgarian audiences, and the music from their project Third Mother, is still touring the world stages.

More than twenty different big bands have played Bansko over the years. Besides the traditional participants from the Big Band of Bulgarian National Radio under the baton of Yanko Miladinov, who usually open the event, notable guest performers include the big formations of Vili Kazasian, Georgi Borisssov, Angel Zaberski, several orchestras from Germany, including the IKS Big Band. And during the tenth festival edition audiences were able to hear the arguably most unusual orchestra in the history of the festival – the SHAPE International Big Band, which is part of the official orchestra representing NATO.

The beginning, the ideas, the followers…

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More than ten years ago the manager of the festival, Dr. Emil Iliev – a well-known dermatologist, acupuncturist, a doctor with an enviable practice in Bulgaria and Germany, opened a clinic in Bansko. The clinic welcomed guests from different European countries. Here they learned about a healthy lifestyle, underwent treatment or simply relaxed – but they also wanted good entertainment. A series of concerts were staged with the participation of well known Bulgarian chamber musicians, as well as jazz performers like Camelia Todorova, Vassil Petrov, Lyudmil Gergiev and Simeon Shterev-Banana. For these artists the scenic Pirin mountain town was a discovery and their common dream was to start a jazz festival. Dr. Iliev convinced the then mayor of Bansko that the town could host an international jazz happening. At least for a week. Jazz in Bansko? At a time when work in the field is at its busiest? It seemed impossible. Then.
Now we recall this story with a smile.

Bansko has changed its appearance in the last decades – hotels, ski runs, endless construction. The jazz festival is definitely one of the reasons to expand the main livelihood of the locals. According to the latest statistics, a huge percentage of the town’s population is engaged in tourism and related activities. And during the festival days thousands of music buffs from different parts of the world head for Bansko.