From export to equality & education

JazzDanmark is the national organisation for jazz in Denmark and Danish jazz abroad. JazzDanmark supports and promotes the growth and value of Danish jazz, both within Denmark and abroad through the creation and development of new collaborations, partnerships, projects and experiences and by encouraging participation and awareness.

The JazzDanmark team has worked nationally and internationally for over a decade with projects in a wide range of areas. The popular showcase programme in Germany called Danish Vibes, a Danish jazz festival in London called Sounds of Denmark, a cross-nordic talent program called Nordic Jazz Comets is just a few of the organisation’s famous international brands. In recent years the organisation has furthermore hosted several conceptual events and touring projects throughout Asia like Opposite Denmark Japan and DMC – Danish Music in China in order to respond to the demand for Danish jazz in the Asian region.

Since 2014 JazzDanmark have been determined to change the gender balance in jazz through several diversity projects. The countrywide JazzCamp for Girls-project is an acclaimed attempt to do this hosting 15-20 camps simultaneously across Denmark each year. An EU-funded touring project Kids Can working in collaboration with Jazzkaar (EE) and Hot Club (P) has proved new ways of working with diversity in music as well as audience development. Recently the diversity question within improvised music was challenged again with the project Improv for Refugee Children hosting camps across refugee centres in Denmark and developing educational material for diverse children groups without any use of spoken language.

JazzDanmark has been running the oldest international summer camp in Northern Europe for professional musicians for over 40 years called Summer Session, and have recently released a youth version of this named Jazzdalen (The Jazz Valley) with a declared 50/50 gender balance.

The Covid-19 crisis has prompted JazzDanmark to redirect projects into new formats, and released a widespread concert-concept called Backyard Jazz on March 20th 2020. Small concerts in backyards with audience watching from windows and balconies has entertained more than 250.000 audiences live and via stream across the world during the lock-down. In November JazzDanmark will host the Danish Music Awards Jazz, an annual event broadcasted live on TV and radio, showcasing the high quality of music in the country. We also hand out 130.000 € each year for travel support for Danish musicians touring abroad and administrate two other funding schemes for national transportation of musicians as well as project support.

In september 2020 JazzDanmark was awarded the Europe Jazz Award for Music & Community. Read more here.

 

About JazzDanmark

JazzDanmark is one of four so-called "genre-organizations" existing in Denmark. JazzDanmark - as the name suggests - works with jazz and related genres while the three other genre-organizations work with world, folk, and related genres (Tempi), rock, pop, and related genres (Rosa) and sound-art, new music, classical music and related genres (SNYK).

The genre-organizations are primarily funded by 4-year framework agreements with the Danish Arts Council, which is supplemented by funding from foundations, sponsors, and other sources. The current agreement runs from 2017-2021, thus following JazzDanmarks current strategic plan.

JazzDanmark is located in Copenhagen, but works on a nationwide scale in Denmark. Furthermore we have activities in a wide range of countries across the world. The organization's permanent team is made up of 5-7 full-time employees (see information here) and a couple of part-time employees, but the organization also engages numerous external collaborators and project managers.

 

JazzDanmark's work

JazzDanmark's work can be broken down into three tasks (defined by the Danish Arts Council for all the genre-organizations) and four strategic focuses (specific to JazzDanmark):

The three tasks are

• Counseling, information and network activities

• Project activities

• Support activities (financial)

• From 2021 and onwards the organisation will also work with data collection and analysis.

The four strategic focuses are

• Audience development

• Danish jazz in an international perspective

• Diversity on, behind, and in front of the stage

• Jazz in all of Denmark

 

JazzDanmarks services

JazzDanmark is the natural contact-point for international jazz-stakeholders who wish to collaborate with the Danish jazz-scene. For international musicians, this can be sharing of knowledge about the Danish livejazz-organizers or knowledge about agents and bookers who work with international acts. We can also help you with information on other Danish music organizations and potential collaborators who might have interest in your project or who can contribute to the realization of international operators' ambitions in Denmark.

 

Working with JazzDanmark

If you wish to learn more about JazzDanmark and our projects, feel free to contact us. If you are contacting us regarding collaboration on, or support for a project, please keep the following in mind:

• JazzDanmark only hands out direct financial support to Danish musicians regarding support of international touring projects. More information on this pool is available here (in Danish).

• If you are proposing a project or collaboration to JazzDanmark that might not involve any direct financial support, but still requires (financial) ressources from JazzDanmarks side, please consider how the project creates value for JazzDanmark and the Danish jazz scene. Simply offering to present some Danish jazz if we cover the costs isn't good enough - in that case we could have easily spent our yearly budget mid-january every year. Think about how the collaboration you're proposing supports the Danish artists visibility and long-term possibilities in your country/area and think about which ressources you are willing to put into the project. And then contact us. We're looking forward to hearing from you.