The Sun Rises Again with Hemingway Jazz Fest — 8th Edition

In July 2014, the brothers behind Hemingway Fun Club Tirana — Rudi, Blendi and Altini — together with a small “cell” of close friends, myself among them, developed the idea of creating a modest cultural and musical event.

The goal was to move beyond the four walls of concert halls and place the stage directly where people lived: under the open sky, in the lane of a Tirana neighbourhood.

The need to promote the jazz scene in Tirana was constantly present in the concerns and conversations of musicians. The ambition was to establish jazz as an integral part of cultural life not only in the capital but across the country.

On 21 July 2014, the first edition of Hemingway Jazz Fest took place in the Tirana neighbourhood near Kont Urani Street.

A large number of volunteers supported the organization and management of that first edition. Artists and performers including Ema Andrea, Gent Rrushi, Emiljan Dhimo, Ermal Rodi, Brikel Guga Band, Ilir Bajri Trio and others gave the audience an artistic experience that, at the time, felt entirely new.

The overwhelming turnout left little doubt that the festival should continue in the years ahead.

To make the organization more sustainable, Hemingway Jazz Fest was formally established, giving Tirana a valuable cultural ritual that has grown from year to year.

Today the festival provides a steady impulse to cultural life in Tirana and across our wider region.

Hemingway Jazz Fest — a small initiative built with great love — has become one of the country’s major jazz events, a place where bridges of cultural exchange are built.

Over the years, well-known jazz musicians have performed at the festival.

Its programme is broad. Thematic evenings have become a tradition: Blues Night, Latin Dance Night, Balkan Beat, African, Funk, World Music and more.

Other forms of artistic expression also find a stage there: poetry, theatre, local culinary culture and drinks, biographical films about jazz, and exhibitions.

The festival’s audience continues to grow, inspired each year by a new theme.

Jazz Fest offers a programme that moves through familiar territories of jazz while also trying to reach younger audiences and people who are not necessarily oriented toward jazz.

Because of its history, jazz is a music built through the meeting of cultures.

Styles combine, the form constantly changes, and the transitions toward other musical languages remain fluid.

Jazz is always an expression of joie de vivre — of passion, reflection and change.

Today we can find equivalents of that spirit in the trip-hop music of younger generations, but also in music that is almost meditative.

At the same time there have always been, and continue to be, jazz “classics”, artists capable of giving first-rate concerts in the very particular atmosphere of Hemingway Jazz Fest.

This mixture draws committed jazz listeners as well as people who are not yet part of that community but may become part of it — in Tirana and in neighbouring regions.

On one side, Tirana gains a new cultural audience through the festival.

On the other, the programme also reflects the current condition of the jazz scene, where styles can be distinguished but are continually affected by soul, rock, funk, Latin music, classical music and pop.

Quality instead of quantity.

According to this principle, Hemingway Jazz Fest presents fewer groups on individual concert nights, because less is often more.

That concentration strengthens the quality of the programme and allows the audience to remember a carefully balanced selection of concerts as a distinctive musical event.

Enjoy the 8th edition of Hemingway Jazz Fest in Tirana and embrace again the sound of love and human closeness that we have missed because of COVID-19.

Save the date: 21 July 2021

Eda Zari