Festival puts Umbria on world music map
Print Edition
CARLO Pagnotta is the founder and artistic director of the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy, one of the most important jazz festivals in the world.
The live music extravaganza has been held annually since 1973 and today is held twice a year, with a 10-day summer festival in Perugia and a five-day winter event in the small town of Orvieto in late December.
Pagnotta, 82, said his interest in jazz began more than six decades ago.
“I remember in college I was listening to the famous jazz festival in Paris, it was 1949. I became a fan, and with a couple of friends I founded a jazz club and used to organize concerts with a few friends in Perugia,” Pagnotta told Shanghai Daily last week during a visit to the city.
These concerts eventually grew into the Umbria Jazz Festival, one of the most prestigious events of its kind. Over its history, the festival has hosted legends such as Miles Davis, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie and Ornette Coleman, among many others.
“Compared with other European countries, we came later. But because Italian people are very creative, now we can say that Italian jazz is only second to American jazz. Now we have very good Italian jazz musicians,” Pagnotta said.
To expand their audience, organizers also regularly invite high-profile none-jazz artists to perform at the festival, including Santana, Sting, Van Morrison, Elton John and Phil Collins. Last summer, Lady Gaga also played at the festival.
“Once we had a main stage, we could seat around 4,000 to 5,000 people, so we also wanted to something ‘extra jazz.’ This started in 1987 when we invited Sting to the concert,” Pagnotta said.
Perugia, the capital city of the Umbria region, becomes a magnet for jazz-lovers every summer. According to Pagnotta, they can sell 50,000 to 70,000 tickets to the event’s indoor shows each year, while as many as 400,000 people turn up for its free outdoor events.
“The reason we are very successful is that we combine old architecture, the city and its traditions with music,” said Pagnotta.
The summer event is also a platform for the Umbria Jazz Clinics, a program held in collaboration with the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Through this program, students from Berklee can spend two weeks in Italy learning and improving their musical skills.
“It’s not only a music festival, but also a music school. Students from around the world come here — only 25 percent of the students are Italian. The collaboration has been going on for over three decades,” Pagnotta said.
Now, after decades of success in Italy, Pagnotta is ready to expand the festival with concerts in Shanghai starting next year.
“The difference between having the festival in Perugia and Shanghai is that in Perugia, we are combining the old city with modern jazz. But here we are coming to combine the city of the future with jazz. Jazz is successful in every part of the world, so why not in China?” Pagnotta explained.
The Umbria Jazz Festival will be featured as a special event at JZ’s annual spring jazz festival next year in the beginning of May.
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