First notes of 6th Amman Jazz Festival sounded

AMMAN — The sixth edition of Amman Jazz Festival will kick off at the Haya Cultural Centre on Sunday, with the aim of expanding jazz's audience in the Kingdom. 

The managing director of the festival, Lama Hazboun, said the festival, organised by event management company Orange-Red, seeks to raise awareness of the beauty of this musical genre. 

“When the event first started, there were only around 100 audience members attending the festival. In recent years, we began reaching many more people,” she told The Jordan Times in an interview on Saturday. 

Hazboun said the festival has started attracting different age groups as well. 

“It is usually thought that this kind of music is only followed by elderly people. We noticed that young people also started attending as well,” she added. 

Hazboun said the unique thing about this year’s festival is the diversity of artists participating in the event.  

“There are eight bands from eight countries including Germany, Sweden, Spain and Italy, but there are artists who are originally from even more countries, and this adds a beautiful flavour to the music performed in the festival,” she added. 

The diversity of the venues hosting the activities also makes the festival attractive. 

“Some people are not in the habit of attending a theatre, so we will attract the audience by holding shows at different indoor and outdoor venues,” she added. 

The festival, funded by the European Union and the European Union National Institutes for Culture , will present two concerts each night from April 23 until April 26, according to an organisers’ statement.