Turin, city of art, culture, great museums and gastronomic delights and in a process of deep architectural and urban transformation, this year again offers a wide range of cultural events of great artistic and touristic value.
And the next fifth edition of the Turin Jazz Festival will transform the city (for 10 days, from 22 April to 1 May 2016) into an open-air jazz club, where some of the best jazz musicians in the world will perform, taking over the historic centre, streets, squares, clubs and the social scene of the city.
Most of the concerts of the main Festival will be hosted in the historical setting of piazza Castello, characterised by its imposing and courtly palaces, Palazzo Madama and Palazzo Reale.
The Festival’s common theme as conceived by its artistic director Stefano Zenni is “Jazz and other arts: theatre, dance, visual arts, cinema, photography and literature”. The 2016 edition tries to examine the mixing of languages with new productions and important exclusives. Amongst the major events, mostly of which for free, there are the evening main stage concerts in piazza Castello: the original production of Roy Paci with his fire Orchestra and the voice of Hindi Zahra and the trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso with a rousing tribute to Duke Ellington.
The 25th April will be dedicated to the “Jazz della Liberazione”, a day that will culminate with a surprising premiere: Pulse! (Jazz and The City), a project of Max Casacci, Emanuele Cisi and Daniele Mana (Vaghe Stelle) where the sounds and noises of the city meet the jazz of Flavio Boltro, Furio Di Castri, Gianluca Petrella, Enzo Birilli with the invaluable participation of Petra Magoni and Ferruccio Spinetti, the rapper Ensi and Enrico Rava.
Other leading artists at the festival are saxophonist Tim Berne, for years a leader in contemporary jazz, the virtuoso Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, the overwhelming gypsy jazz of French Angelo Debarre and, on the occasion of 30 April UNESCO international day of Jazz, the National Jazz Orchestra – Young Talents, directed by Paolo Damiani, with guest saxophonist Rosario Giuliani.
The 1st May finale of the 5th Edition of the Grande Festa Jazz will see the square come alive with the sounds of Incognito, pioneers of acid jazz. Together with this, piazza Castello will be transformed into an open-air dancefloor.
Jazz group Incognito
The TJF 2016 features many new exclusive productions one of which sees the fusion of jazz and theatre: the saxophonist Francesco Cafiso with his quartet and the actor Vinicio Marchioni (star of films and successful fictions and in the theatre with Ronconi and Latella, amongst others) interpret the story “The Persecutor” of Julio Cortázar.
Another big event is the soundtrack of the film “Birdman”, directed by Alejandro Iñárritu, winner of four Oscars and two Golden Globe Awards, with the obsessive, wonderful soundtrack written and performed by Antonio Sánchez, widely considered as one of the greatest living percussionists. Sánchez will perform the European premiere of the live soundtrack during the screening of the film.
The off part, entrusted to the Fringe is developed in two special places in the city: piazza Vittorio Veneto, along the River Po with the splendid Turin hillside in the background and the Quadrilatero grid of streets and squares that were the Roman layout and that now are the centre of Turin nightlife. The Fringe, directed by Furio Di Castri, offers a programme with prominent names: Gabriele Mirabassi, Luciano Biondini, Marije Nie, Maria Pia de Vito, Rita Marcotulli, Iain Ballamy, Rosario Bonaccorso, Karim Zyad, Rémi Crambes, Raphaël Imbert, to name a few.
The format of the TFJ Fringe remains the same: quality food and wine, concerts in aperitif time and at night the usual Urlo dei Murazzi, solo on the river barge at 23:00 on the Po, followed by the Night Towers where the groups will play in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, then moving on inside the bars until late at night.
