2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival

The 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival opens in just under three weeks on Saturday 4 June.

In their third year, the artistic team of Artistic Director Michael Tortoni and Program Director Sophia Brous have created a program that gives Australian audiences the opportunity to hear international jazz luminaries alongside right here in Melbourne.
 
Jazz fans will be excited to hear the likes of Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter Trio, Sun Ra Arkestra, Norma Winstone Trio, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Faust are on board making 2011's Jazz Festival a hot ticket in town.
 
The curiosity ever-present in jazz and improvisation – the joy of discovery – is what this year’s Melbourne International Jazz Festival is all about. Since the 2011 program was released in March, some exciting additions to the program now offer even more exciting ways to come and play including Jazzland, the Special Queen’s Birthday weekend event at ACMI's Jazz on Film program and Conrad and Palestine are in Melbourne to perform Durations, an Australian Premiere event exclusive to the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.

Sonny Rollins

This unrepeatable event features Conrad and Palestine performing a series of long-form improvisations, both together in their historic duo collaboration, An Aural Symbiotic Mystery and also in solo performances, which feature the Melbourne Town Hall grand organ.

There are also a few program updates including long-term collaborators Reuben Rogers (bass) and Greg Hutchinson (drums) performing a stripped back groove set that explores their hip-hop influences and gospel upbringing as the opening act for Hypnotic Brass Ensemble at the Forum Theatre on Tuesday 7 June.

Rogers and Hutchinson are touring to Melbourne to perform as part of the Aaron Goldberg Trio and 3Cohen Sextet.

Further exciting program updates to be announced shortly include the program of artists for The Cave - a late night rendezvous where music, spontaneous performance and conversation overlap in a social fin de partie at the Kelvin Club; and the full line up of artists appearing in Overground, a six-hour multi stage Festival within a Festival featuring some of the most celebrated creative and improvisational artists in the world.
 
Don’t forget to mark the opening day, Saturday June 4 in your diaries - The Big Jam (2pm to 3pm), for some wonderfully participatory free family fun and the Opening Celebration Concert when the Cairo Club Orchestra, serenade the spectacular – and top secret – lineup of headline artists from Australia and around the world. The Melbourne International Jazz Festival and The Light in Winter invite you to an unmissable celebration of jazz that will have you dancing into the twilight!