Jazzfest Research Lab
Six decades of Jazzfest Berlin means six decades of contemporary history, Berlin history, German history, European, transatlantic and intercontinental history and, of course, 60 years of music history. With the Jazzfest Research Lab, initiated in January 2023, Jazzfest Berlin has welcomed academics and students to take a critical look at the festival’s archive, its programmes, creators, musicians and – last but not least – its myths.
This international research project will analyse the history of Jazzfest Berlin with regard to various aspects such as gender and race, its ever-changing curation in the course of socio-political developments and the visual language of the festival. Seven academics from Germany, the USA and Australia as well as students from the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Hildesheim are working with the digitally available Jazzfest archive.
The results will be presented as part of the festival’s supporting programme in November and will be included in the 2024 anniversary magazine. Poster and photo exhibitions, a film programme with concert recordings from the early decades, panels with contemporary witnesses and oral history accounts will give various in-depth perspectives into the 60-year history of the festival – which began as the Berliner Jazztage in the Philharmonie Berlin and was also broadcast live on television for many years.
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Participants in the Jazzfest Research Lab:
- Prof. George E. Lewis – Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University; musician
► Opening speech “60 Years of Jazzfest Berlin” on 31 October 2024 - Nora Leidinger – lecturer and researcher in Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen
Prof. Dr. Kristin McGee – Ass. Professor of Popular Music at the University of Groningen and Senior Lecturer in Jazz and Contemporary Music Performance at the School of Music at the Australian National University
► Breaking boundaries in festival programming: Gendered and cultural transformations at the Jazzfest Berlin
► Interview with Kris Davis and Terri Lyne Carrington: an inclusive approach to performing, touring and teaching - Dr. Harald Kisiedu – historical musicologist, author, musician
► Analysis of aspects of race, politics and the aesthetics of the early years (1964 – 1970) of Jazzfest Berlin and its reception - Dr. Ursel Schlicht – musician, researcher, author, educator
► Multiplicity of perspectives of and from women participants of the Berlin Jazzfest over 60 years - Prof. Dr. Priscilla Layne – Professor at the Department of German Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
► Echoes of change: The Jazzfest Berlin’s response to societal transformations (1980 – 2000) - John Corbett – journalist, curator, former curator of Jazzfest Berlin
► Analysis of the visual language of Jazzfest Berlin 1964 – 2024 with additional attention to the Total Music Meeting
And two seminars in the 2024 summer semester on “60 years of the Berlin Jazz Festival”
- University of Hildesheim
► „60 Years of Jazzfest Berlin: Festivals as Crystallisation Points of Musical and Social Life“
Dr. Bettina Bohle, Director of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt and lecturer at the Institute for Music and Musicology at the University of Hildesheim - Berlin University of the Arts
► “60 Years of Jazzfest Berlin – Festival Studies and/as Musicology”
Prof. Dr. Matthias Pasdzierny, Department of Musicology, Music Theory, Composition and Sound Engineering at the Berlin University of the Arts
Idea and Concept
Christopher Hupe – Dramaturg Jazzfest Berlin
Nadin Deventer – Artistic Director Jazzfest Berlin