2013 Queenstown International Jazz & Blues Festival – Community Programme

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Queenstown’s annual celebration of all things ‘jazz’ begins an exciting new chapter this weekend with the launch of the 2013 Queenstown International Jazz and Blues Festival.

The Queenstown JazzFest Trust is pleased to present a fantastic series of community events to compliment the Festival’s exciting four day programme of free and ticketed concerts at featured venues across town.

The Trust’s aim is to ensure that the Festival remains accessible to all, is family friendly, and most importantly, is thoroughly entertaining.

The free Community Programme enables the Trust to continue to encourage local support and participation in live music, whilst providing development opportunities to young people to foster their interest in music and creating performance opportunities for local musicians to showcase their talents.

New Orleans Street Parade and Performers

The parade starts at 12noon from Queenstown Gardens Band Stand with a procession along the marine parade, around Earnslaw Park, and up The Mall to the Village Green. Led by the Be There Bicycle Band, there procession will include a wide variety of talented performers including musicians, dancers, street performers, and acrobats. This is very much a family affair with locals encouraged to bring an instrument of sort and groove along with the parade as it makes it way to the Village Green where the community stage schedule kicks off.

Queenstown Village Green Community Stage

The Village Green will be the focal point of our Community Programme of events with live music and activities scheduled for both Saturday & Sunday from 1pm – 6pm. The Community Stage has a youth focus on both days with jazz bands from Wakatipu High School and Dunedin’s James Hargest College to perform prior to our main afternoon entertainment.

Sat 1:00-2:50pm - James Hargest College Jazz Bands
Sat 3:00-4:20pm – Big Mountain Brothers Band
Sat 4:30-6:00pm – The Jack Daniels Blues Band
Sun 1:00-1:50pm – Wakatipu High School Band
Sun 2:00-2:50pm – Best Served Chilled
Sun 3:00-4:20pm – Neo
Sun 4:30-6:00pm – The Jason Thornton Quartet

Arrowtown ‘Jazz on the Green’, Buckingham Green, Arrowtown

Sun 12:00-12:30pm – Christchurch’s Be There Bicycle Band
Sun 12:30-2:00pm – The Jason Thornton Quartet

Be There Bicycle Band

Christchurch's Be There Bicycle Band performs music from the first half of the 1900s (Dixieland, war time music and marches) in replica costumes and on custom made replica bicycles. The band will provide roaming performances about Queenstown on Saturday 26th and in Arrowtown on Sunday 27th. Their performances are a spectacle not to be missed!

Jazz Art Performances

Village Green & Earnslaw Park – Saturday & Sunday

The Trust is excited to continue to explore the connection between jazz and art following last year’s successful introduction of the Jazz Art initiative which featured painting inspired by live performance. Jazz is a perfect accompaniment to contemporary art and by bringing the two together, we hope to provide both a platform for artistic talent and an opportunity for audiences to appreciate an art form that they might not otherwise have experienced.

This year, 4 talented emerging artists from SIT’s Applied Arts programme together with course coordinator Karl Hart will create improvisational and spontaneous paintings in response to the live performances on stage at Earnslaw Park and Queenstown Village Green. The artists become part of the spectacle as they create paintings that capture the mood, sounds and electricity of the live performance and environment.

Check out the official Festival booklet available from participating venues for the full programme of events.
Festival tickets available from eventfinder.co.nz

ENDS

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