Speakers and Participants

SAXOPHONIST, PRODUCER, PEOPLE’S ARTIST OF RUSSIA,
PRESIDENT OF IGOR BUTMAN MUSIC GROUP,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MOSCOW JAZZ ORCHESTRA,
PRESIDENT OF JAB FORUM&FESTIVAL

IGOR BUTMAN

Igor Butman is justly considered as the top advocate of Russian jazz art in the world. In 1999 he founded his internationally acclaimed Igor Butman Orchestra (now — Moscow Jazz Orchestra),  Quartet and Quintet, described by DownBeat Magazine as «an outfit of virtuosos». In past 20 years Igor Butman along with his bands toured dozens of countries and performed at the world’s biggest festivals.

Igor Butman released 17 albums both as a leader and co-leader, including Magic Land (Sony Classical) featuring Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, John Patitucci, Stefon Harris and Randy Brecker. 

Igor Butman Music Group, led by Mr Butman, consists of the Igor Butman Jazz Club in Moscow, the Butman Music Records and the biggest Russian jazz concert agency IBMG, which runs 12 jazz festivals in Russia and represents the finest Russian artists abroad.

In 2016 Igor Butman was elected the President of the Russian Authors’ Society (Russian equivalent of ASCAP). In 2018 he became the initiator and co-artistic director (along with Herbie Hancock) of the International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Since 2019 Mr Butman has been the head of the first Jazz Academy in thehistory of Russia.

Director General of Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives

Roman Karmanov

Director of Akra Jazz Festival

Kadir Dursun

Founder and general manager of Nisville jazz festival

Ivan Blagojevic

Ivan Blagojevic – founder and general manager of Nisville jazz festival ( www.nisville.com , Nis, Serbia) was born at January 7th 1959. Graduated at Faculty of economy, Nis (Bachelor of Economics – specialized in Culture Management). Until 1990, he was succesfull theatre director (several rewards for best directing on nationaly festivals of amateur theatres). Author of concepts and main organiser of following events: Nisville jazz festival – 28 editions, Theatre Yu fest – 4 editions, Rock festival – 3 editions, Festival of chamber music – 1 edition and few art colonies. He incarnated and organized New Year’s Eve celebration at the central city square of Nis, with more than 150 performers in front of 100.000 visitors. He published several music edition and literature publications. He wrote book of essays “Walk on Jazz”.

The jazz festival tradition in Niš, initiated in 1981, and terminated in 1991, was renewed at the end of 1994 thanks to the producer and economist who specializes in cultural management, Ivan Blagojević, theatre director by vocation. From the festival’s very beginning, its concept has been based on presenting the ‘traditional’ jazz forms together with their fusion with the ethnic tradition from the different parts of the world, especially from the Balkans.

Based on estimates, over 17.000 musicians have performed at Nišville Jazz festival, and their concerts have probably been attended by more than 1.750,000 visitors. Ever since the move to the plateau in the Fortress, the following have been among those who performed at Nisville: Solomon Burke, Joss Stone, Jean Luc Ponty Quartet, Osibisa, Al Di Meola, Christian Scott, Maria Joao, Bob Geldof, Earth, Wind and Fire, Brussels Jazz Orchestra, John Patittuci, Lollo Meier, Opus 5, Kim Clark & Joe Bowie, Lydian Sound Orchestra, Richard Galliano, Hans and Candy Dulfer, Benny Golson, Mingus Dynasty, Sly & Robbie ft. Junior Reid, Chico Freeman, Milcho Leviev, Stanley Jordan, Mungo Jerry Blues Band, Rick Margitza, Tom Harrell, Randy Brecker, Miroslav Vitous, Grace Kelly, Jamie Davis, Incognito, Kyle Eastwood, Hubert Tubbs, Ginger Baker Jazz Confusion ft. Pee Wee Ellis, Jazzanova, Ron Carter Golden Striker Trio ft. Russel Malone, Nouvelle Vague, Marius Neset, Joe Bowie, Roy Hargrove, De Phazz, The Brand New Heavies, Georgie Fame, Terje Rypdal, Manu Dibango, Yehia Khalil Gipsy Kings, Goran Bregovic etc.

In 2016. Nišville Jazz Festival was chosen by The Guar-dian as one of the best jazz festivals of Europe, alongside Mon-treux jazz festival, Umbria jazz festival, North Sea jazz festival etc. The festival was also highly recommended  by the British BBC in 2017. on their BBC Travel portal.

Festival‘s whole hearted devotion to preserve musical legacy of the Balkans and South-Eastern Europe, is witnessed by the prestigious award from 2016. awarded to the director of the festival, Ivan Blagojević. The “Zlatni Vek“ (“Golden Age“) award is the highest honour awarded by The Bulgarian Mini-stry of Culture to foreign citizens, and mr. Blagojević is the first citizen of Serbia to receive the award.

Every year, Nišville is followed by over 450 accredited journalists from Serbia and abroad, and among them, there are representatives of renowned music and political magazines. For example, in his portrayal of Nišville, the critic from the most famous jazz magazine, “Downbeat”, paid special attention to some of the participants at the festival from Serbia, i.e. from the Balkans, while the reporter from the unofficial media of the European Union, the Brussels magazine “New Europe”, headlined the text on the festival (announced on the front page), as “Nišville – the European Face of Serbia”!

Vocalist, arranger, composer

Alina Engibaryan

Saxophonist, Director of Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra

Yuriy Bogatyrev

Chief Editor of VK Music

Sergey Mudrik

Director of Bahrain Jazz Fest

Jude D’Souza

Jude D’Souza is the festival director of Bahrain Jazz Fest, Bahrains’s international jazz festivalestablished in 2017 now operating in its 6th successful year. With a celebrated background in marketingand media over 2 decades, Jude founded the festival’s holding company in 2016, Clockwork, which isBahrain’s leading agency for music management, experiential marketing and events. Bahrain Jazz Festtoday is the biggest music festival in Bahrain having hosted over 100 international jazz and blues bandswhile attracting over 30,000 people over the last 5 years. The festival plays a pivotal role in communityand schools youth development through its many outreach programs. In 2021, Bahrain Jazz Fest wasofficial recognised by the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz and UNESCO as an Official OrganisationalPartner of International Jazz Day.

Program Manager, Director of NGO Urbani Cult (Budva, Montenegro)

Vinko Mihajlović

Vinko Mihajlović is a marketing expert with thirty years’ experience and the director of UrbaniKult, an NGO founded in 2006 Its mission is to promote culture and strengthen the role ofNGOs in Montenegro and abroad. Such music events as Petrovac Jazz Festival, MontenegroSun Reggae Festival (Montenegro) and Jazzaland Festival Temerin (Serbia) are held under theauspices of the organization, with Vinko as the organizer and artistic director of all theseprojects.

Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra of Tatarstan

Sergey Vasiliev

Director of Mussorgsky Jazz Orchestra, Music Director of Georgy Garanyan’s ensemble “Melody”

Sergey Bogdanov

Music Director of Bolshoi Jazz Orchestra

Petr Vostokov

CEO and the art director of Helicon Jazz Club, Novokuznetsk

Olga Yushkova

She is the CEO and the art director of Helicon Jazz Club in the city of Novokuznetsk.

Olga produces such international festivals as Jazz by the Old Castle, KuZnya jazZ, and the Siberian Encounters Arts Festival. She is also an award-winning vocalist at several international festivals, and the MP of “A Just Russia – For Truth” political party for the City Assembly.

Artistic Director and conductor of Bashkir State Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra

Oleg Kasimov

Drummer, bandleader, composer

Oleg Butman

Radio host, Artistic Director of Koktebel Jazz Party

Mikhail Ikonnikov

Music manager, Sergey Golovnya’s project leader, creative producer of Magnetophone Music Agency

Leyla Tuleusheva

Founder of Jazzist Online Magazine & Record Label

Lev Borovkov

Composer, pianist, multi-instrumentalist, producer

Konstantin Khazanovich

Journalist, author, publisher of Jazz.Ru magazine

Kirill Moshkov

The Karelian State Philharmonic

Irina Ustinova

Director of the Sakhalin Philharmonic

Ilya Alexandrov

CEO of Petroconcert

Artyushkina Ekaterina

Singer, film score composer, arranger

Dmitiy Noskov

Head of Strelka Jazz Festival

Daria Ghitelson

Saxophonist, composer, educator, soloist of Moscow Jazz Orchestra

Anton Chekurov

Jazz trombonist, arranger, lecturer, Dizzy Dutch Duck fusion band leader

Anton Boyarskikh

Music Producer of Tavrida Art Cluster

Anna Hramova

Deputy Director of Novosibirsk Philharmonic Society for International Relations

Alena Bolkvadze

Pianist, producer

Alexey Cheremizov

Pianist, producer, bandleader

Alexey Podymkin

Journalist, TV and radio host, music producer on Radio Russia

Alexey Pevchev

Producer, organizer, community leader

Alexey Krivsky

Singer-songwriter, music producer, vocal coach

Alexandra Almazova

Head of Musical Variety Art Department, Director of Rostov College of Arts Big Band

Adam Teratsuyan

Founder of WartaJazz, Indonesia

Agus Setiawan Basuni

Jazzpreneur Agus Setiawan Basuni, loves to travel and cook. Over the years he has produced more than 10 Jazz Festivals in Indonesia. His organisation, WartaJazz in the an ecosystem of Jazz in Indonesia.Proactively working with multiple organisations and individuals promoting Jazz and World Music, Agus is one of the key figures in bringing Indonesian arts and music to the world.

Settlers manager

Alexandra Evlashkina

Director of Igor Butman Foundation, Executive Producer of Oleg Akkuratov

Anton Sergeyev

People’s Artist of Russia, pianist, educator, composer, producer

Daniil Kramer

Executive Producer of Leningrad Bridges Festival, Proletarian Tango frontman, actor

Dmitry Karanevsky

Technical director and sound engineer of Igor Butman Music Group and Moscow Jazz Orchestra

Evgeniy Pocikaylik

SAXOPHONIST, PRODUCER, PEOPLE’S ARTIST OF RUSSIA,
PRESIDENT OF IGOR BUTMAN MUSIC GROUP,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MOSCOW JAZZ ORCHESTRA,
PRESIDENT OF JAB FORUM&FESTIVAL

IGOR BUTMAN

Igor Butman is justly considered as the top advocate of Russian jazz art in the world. In 1999 he founded his internationally acclaimed Igor Butman Orchestra (now — Moscow Jazz Orchestra),  Quartet and Quintet, described by DownBeat Magazine as «an outfit of virtuosos». In past 20 years Igor Butman along with his bands toured dozens of countries and performed at the world’s biggest festivals.

Igor Butman released 17 albums both as a leader and co-leader, including Magic Land (Sony Classical) featuring Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, John Patitucci, Stefon Harris and Randy Brecker. 

Igor Butman Music Group, led by Mr Butman, consists of the Igor Butman Jazz Club in Moscow, the Butman Music Records and the biggest Russian jazz concert agency IBMG, which runs 12 jazz festivals in Russia and represents the finest Russian artists abroad.

In 2016 Igor Butman was elected the President of the Russian Authors’ Society (Russian equivalent of ASCAP). In 2018 he became the initiator and co-artistic director (along with Herbie Hancock) of the International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Since 2019 Mr Butman has been the head of the first Jazz Academy in thehistory of Russia.

Head of international projects department at Igor Butman Music Group, executive producer of JAB forum&festival Russian and VII International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg

ROMAN KHRISTYUK

Gnesin Academy of Music and Moscow State Academy of Law alumnus Roman Khristyuk started working with Igor Butman in 2005 as PR manager of Le Club (now Igor Butman Club). In 2006-2008 he collaborated with the Independent newspaper in Moscow as a concert observer. Now Roman is the executive producer of the Jazz Across Borders forum&festival and the head of international projects at Igor Butman Music Group, adding to it he’s working on worldwide tours for Igor Butman and Moscow Jazz Orchestra. Among IBMG’s international projects are Sochi Jazz Festival (Sochi), Triumph of Jazz (Moscow and St. Petersburg), Jazz Seasons at Gorky Leninsky (Moscow region), Future of Jazz (Moscow), Sakhalin-Hokkaido Jazz (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sapporo), World Jazz Festival (Riga) and Skolkovo Jazz Festival (Skolkovo Innovation Center). Roman Khristyuk teaches PR and concert management at Music Management Faculty of Russian Gnesin Academy of Music. In 2018, as an executive producer, he led the working groupon the preparation and holding of the VII International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist

Lee Ritenour

Lee Ritenour has maintained a delicate balance between the individual creative vision and the group dynamic, since the beginning of his career. He did his first session work in the late ‘60s with the Mamas and the Papas, who dubbed him Captain Fingers for demonstrating incredible dexterity while still in his teens. Since his early recordings in the 1970s, he has earned a Grammy Award and 19 Grammy nominations, numerous #1 spots on guitar polls, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian SJ Awards, and a prestigious “Alumnus of the Year” Award from the University of Southern California. 

He has recorded more than 40 albums that have yielded 35 chart songs. As a young guitarist, he put his combination of diverse musical styles and brilliant technical chops to work on more than 3,000 sessions with a broad spectrum of artists, and was a founding member of Fourplay, which is considered the most successful group in contemporary jazz. 

Grammy and Tony Award-winning Jazz Singer, USA

Dee Dee Bridgewater

Over the course of a multifaceted career spanning four decades, Grammy and Tony Award-winning Jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists, putting her unique spin on standards, as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics. Ever the fearless voyager, explorer, pioneer and keeper of tradition, the three-timeGrammy-winner most recently won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Eleanora Fagan(1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee.

Bridgewater’s career has always bridged musical genres. She earned her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band, and throughout the70’s she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon andDizzy Gillespie.

Bridgewater also pursued a parallel career in musical theater, winning a Tony Award for her role as Glinda in The Wiz in 1975 Having recently completed a run as the lead role of Billie Holiday in the off-Broadway production of Lady Day, her other theatrical credits include SophisticatedLadies, Black Ballad, Carmen, Cabaret, and the Off-Broadway and West End Productions of LadyDay, for which Bridgewater received the British Laurence Olivier Nomination for Best Actress in aMusical.

As a Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),Bridgewater continues to appeal for international solidarity to finance global grassroots projects in the fight against world hunger. She is currently on tour worldwide in support of Memphis, her new CD, and in April of this year was the recipient of an NEA Jazz Masters Fellows Award with honors bestowed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Artistic director of the Yaroslavl Jazz Center, the producer of the oldest Russian jazz
festival “Jazz Over the Volga River”, director of the Jazz Research Center.

Igor Gavrilov

The Yaroslavl Jazz Center is a municipal organization, serving as the successor of theYaroslavl Jazz Lovers Club (1974) that got its own building in 1999 Igor regularly organizes concerts, the international festival “Jazz Over the Volga River”, and jazzs team boat cruises. The Yaroslavl Jazz Center also offers a platform for the national jazz archive known as the Jazz Research Center.

Igor was the head of the organizing committee of the Soviet Jazz Federation that was formed in 1988 and disbanded after the Soviet Union collapsed.Igor Gavrilov has sparked public interest in the birth of Russian jazz (October 1, 1922) by corresponding on this topic with the President and the Russian Ministry of Culture over the last 15 years.

Executive director and founder of the creative agency RED EVENTS, creative director of Moscow
State University’s Botanical Garden “Aptekarsky Ogorod”

Alexander Almin

In 2015 Alexander graduated from Moscow State Open University with a degree inInternational Economic Relations.

Since 2015 Alexander has been the creative director of MSU Botanical Garden “Aptekarsky Gorod”. In 2017 he founded the creative agency RED EVENTS, serving as its executive director ever since. He is also the founder of the contemporary art festival ARS HORTUS (2018), founder of the international opera festival BAROCCO NIGHTS (2019), founder of the contemporary music festival XVOYA Neoclassic fest. (2020), and the executive director of the Jazz City Festival (2019).

For the last 10 years, Alexander has been actively engaged in developing city parks and public spaces, creating and promoting new cultural centers, popularizing academic and jazz music, and producing artists and bands.

Director and Co-Founder of Wax Booking Agency, France

Sylvain Dartoy

Passionate about African cultures, entrepreneur, tireless traveller and co-founder of WaxBooking Agency in 2010, he has since devoted himself to artistic production. His main idea is to present Africa and its resonance in the world in all its diversity and modernity. A true talent scout, producer of international tours and shows, he is one of the European references in his specialties.

Editor-in-chief of Citizen Jazz, France

Matthieu Jouan

Matthieu Jouan is the editor-in-chief of Citizen Jazz (www.citizenjazz.com) and Epistrophy journal (www.epistrophy.fr). Author of a book on Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Harmattan, 1999). Editor of “Passage en revue: 15 years of Citizen Jazz” (collective – JEMI, 2016). Curator of theCentenary of Jazz in Europe (2018). Ambassador of the Land of Liege. Member of the EuropeMedia Charts and the French Victoires du Jazz.

Advisor of Foreign Relations in Estonian Ministry of Culture

Madli-Liis Parts

Madli-Liis Parts has been working at the Estonian Ministry of Culture, where she started as the Music Advisor, since 2016, continuing her career as the Advisor of Foreign Relations since fall 2021 She has been a committed music journalist for more than 20 years. She is also one of the founders and an incumbent member of Europe Jazz Media Group. She was the project manager of Jazzkaar Festival´s education program for young jazz journalists in2002-2008 and the initiator of International Jazz Appreciation Month activities in Estonia, leading the project throughout 2004-2008.

Madli-Liis is an experienced communication and reputation-building mentor for solo artists, groups, and participants in various events both in Estonia and abroad. She has been the executive manager of Estonian Composers’ Union and the long-time organizer of the major festival of Estonian contemporary classical music – Estonian Music Days. Her brainchild, a2014 multiple awards-winning music education project called “Mini Estonian Music Days”,was the first festival in Estonia to give school kids an opportunity to organise a music festival with the guiding help of mentors.

Madli-Liis’ career record has also seen her as the program coordinator of the project “Tallinn– European Capital of Culture 2011”, the program leader for Tallinn Culture Cauldron, the music program coordinator for the Estonian young producers program “EK:Labor”, and a producer and curator of multiple international music festivals and projects.Her work in the music industry has taken her across Scandinavia, Europe, the USA, andNorthern Africa.

Artistic Director for Toronto Downtown Jazz (TDJ), Canada

Josh Grossman

Josh Grossman is Artistic Director for Toronto Downtown Jazz (TDJ), producer of the annual TD Toronto Jazz Festival, one of Canada’s largest international music festivals.Josh is a trumpeter and a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Jazz PerformanceProgram; he is the founding Artistic Director and Conductor for the 18-piece TorontoJazz Orchestra, now in its 22nd year.

Josh has served as Performance Manager for The Glenn Gould School at The RoyalConservatory; Manager for the High Park Choirs of Toronto (now called Young VoicesToronto); and Operations Manager for Continuum Contemporary Music, one ofCanada’s top contemporary chamber ensembles. Josh was Artistic Director for the Markham Jazz Festival from 2006 to 2009

Producer, founder and President of EMM (Edelman Music Management), USA

Jeff Edelman

Edelman Music Management is one of the most renowned promotion agencies that operate across the post-Soviet space. EMM has cooperated with numerous prominent musicians from the US and Europe.

Besides collaborating with world-famous artists across multiple genres, EMM focuses on talent scouting and international promotion. Jeff Edelman runs workshops and webinars on international music management and interviews famous musicians as part of his “BackstageStories with Jeff Edelman” project. Jeff can find promising new artists before they become known to the wider pubic.

Jeff Edelman and EMM have cooperated with such artists as Larry Coryell, Seamus Blake,Dennis Chambers, Lenny White, Scott Henderson, Christian Galvez, Frank Gambale, StanleyJordan, Scott Kinsey, Hadrien Feraud, Frank McComb, Sy Smith, Quentin Moore, Garry Willis,Horacio “El Negro” Hernández, Kazumi Watanabe, Anthony David, Jeff Berlin, Сarmen Rodgers, and many others.

CEO of Prime Tours & Promotion, Germany

Georg Pfaab

In 1992 Georg co-founded Transatlantico Tours & Services, a Berlin-based booking company which soon turned into the leading agency for Brazilian artists in Europe, later on promoting a variety of artists, such as Youssou N D́ our, Branford Marsalis, Caetano Veloso, Incognito,Cassandra Wilson, Jazzkantine, Khaled, Noa, Cheikh Lô, Ruben Gonzales & Ibrahim Ferrer, AlJarreau, Goran Bregovic, Manu Chao, and Toto.

In 2006 he founded Prime Tours & Promotion, a live-booking agency and tour-promoter based in Berlin for artists in jazz, world, and pop music. Initially specializing in the German-speakingarea, the agency currently offers a full European-wide tour service that includes booking, production, tour-promotion and accounting.

In long years of work experience, Prime Tours & Promotion has become a boutique agency for selected artists to establish them on the music market and help them build a sustainable career. The artists list includes Mariza (Portugal), Barbara Pravi (France), Diego el Cigala (Spain),Estrella Morente (Spain), Al Jarreau (USA), Faada Freddy (Senegal/France), Amadou & Mariam(Mali), Souad Massi (Algeria/France), ZAZ (France), Sophie Hunger (Switzerland), Madredeus (Portugal), Anna Maria Jopek (Poland), Gustavo Santaolalla (Argentina), Nitin Sahwney (UK),Lisa Simone (France/USA), and Rosanne Cash (USA).

The principal of Depth of Field Management

Darryl Pitt

Darryl Pitt has worked with a diverse array of artists including Andreas Vollenweider, Simon & Garfunkel, Michael Brecker, Don Grolnick, Kurt Elling, The Bad Plus, Mariko Takahashi, Regina Carter,Before becoming an artist manager, Pitt was a photographer and later became a driving force of both the New Age music phenomenon and, separately, thePitt is the founder of the Macovich Collection of Meteorites. Institutions that have acquired meteorites from Pitt include the Natural History Museum (London), TheAcademy of Sciences (Beijing and Moscow) and the Smithsonian.

Pitt has produced concerts at Carnegie Hall and is the co-producer of the Nearness of You concerts honoring Michael Brecker that have featured Chaka Khan, JamesTaylor, Paul Simon, Diana Krall, Dianne Reeves, Bobby McFerrin and more.

Artistic director of Timitar Festival, Visa For Music Showcase Festival, expert on cultural policy and creative industries at the UNESCO, Morocco

Brahim El Mazned

As a member of the EU/UNESCO Bank of Expertise 2019-2022, and an expert on cultural policy and creative industries at the UNESCO for several years, Brahim El Mazned is also a member of the jury and artistic adviser for numerous cultural events in Morocco and across the world.  

After more than twenty years of active participation in the cultural sector, Brahim El Mazned is considered today as an essential reference in the organisation of major artistic events and musical programming in Morocco and around the world. 

 Since 2004, Brahim El Mazned has been the artistic director of  Timitar Festival, an event mainly dedicated to Amazigh culture, which was made known throughout the world and which has become one of the major events in the world of music. Besides promoting the Amazigh (Berber) culture, the festival welcomes more than 600 artists and receives around half a million audience each year.

In 2014, Brahim El Mazned launched Visa For Music (VFM), the first festival/professional market dedicated to singers and musicians from Africa and the Middle East, which now takes place every year in November in Rabat (Morocco).

As a founder of the ANYA cultural enterprise, Brahim El Mazned has taken part in about a hundred conferences and has initiated dozens of artistic residencies in many countries and regions around the world (Brazil, France, Spain, Australia, United States, Canada, Reunion Island, New Caledonia, Madagascar, South Africa, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, Norway, Greece, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon…). He has taken part in the recording and publishing of dozens of albums, as well as in the organisation of hundreds of concerts in prestigious festivals and venues across the five continents. In addition to this, he has participated in a multitude of meetings and workshops aimed at developing cultural expertise.

Producer and artistic director of OLLN KAN Portugal Festival and MIMO Portugal Festival

Carlos Bartilotti

Graduate in International Relations. Post graduate in cultural management.

Producer and artistic director of OLLN KAN Portugal Festival and MIMO Portugal Festival. Trainer at UNESCO in the area of music management in Mozambique. Tour in :  Spain, France, UK, Germany,Holland, Belgium, Liechenstein, Norway, Sweden, Canada, USA, Russia,  Mozambique, Cabo Verde, Mexico, Brasil, China, World music markets :  Spain, France, UK, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Marrocos , Cabo Verde, Mexico, Colombia.

vocalist, composer, jazz professor and artistic director of JAZZ INSTITUT BERLIN

Céline Rudolph

Vocalist and composer Céline Rudolph glides between Berlin, São Paulo, Paris and New York, between tongues and genres, always landing in the very heart of music. 

She studied vocal jazz and composition at Hochschule der Künste Berlin with mentors David Friedman, Jerry Granelli, Kirk Nurock, Jay Clayton and Catherine Gayer. Soon, she plunged into African music and studied with the percussionist Famoudou Konaté in West Africa. Her love of Brazilian music led her to São Paulo where she met Rodolfo Stroeter who produced three of her albums and four tours across Europe and Brazil so far: The albums are BRAZAVENTURE, METAMORFLORES (enja records) and SALVADOR (Verve, Universal). 

Since 2015 she is collaborating with Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, having recorded the duo album OBSESSION and then playing together at 12th Jarasum International Jazz Festival in South Korea. The album OBSESSION reached the annual list of the German Critics Award „Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik“, and won Céline Rudolph the prestigious German Jazz Award ECHO JAZZ 2018 for best jazz vocalist. 

Now, praised as “a jewel of European jazz vocals” by the French radio station, TSF, having recorded numerous albums with many wonderful musicians including Gary Peacock, Bob Moses, Naná Vasconcelos, Diego Figueiredo and Marcos Suzano, and esteemed by colleagues like Bobby McFerrin, Lee Konitz or Jay Clayton, the adventurous pearl fisher sailed from Berlin to Brooklyn for her latest album PEARLS (released 2019). 

President of Concerts & Touring at Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC)

Georgina Javor

Georgina Javor is the President of Concerts & Touring at Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) where she oversees the strategy, budget and implementation of concert programming at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City and the national and international touring operations of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. 

Previously, she was the Assistant Director of Programming at JALC, managing and curating the programming at Dizzy’s Club and working on mainstage, festival and special event programming. From April 2004 to August 2014, she worked at the Music Center at Strathmore in the Washington, D.C. area, first as part of the public relations and marketing team to open the space in February 2005, and then as Director of Programming. She set the vision for Strathmore’s programming in the 110-seat Music Room, outdoor concert series, artist residencies, and festivals, acted as the administrator for the visual arts program, and was part of the team that launched Strathmore’s 250-seat venue, AMP. 

Prior to her time at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Strathmore, she worked in production for the Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary, Broadway: The American Musical. 

She graduated with distinction from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2003 and completed her MBA at Georgetown University in 2012. She acted as a judge for the Riga Jazz Stage Contest in Latvia in 2018 and 2019, participated as a panelist at Jazz Congress and Chamber Music America in New York City, and has led workshops for emerging artists at Strathmore and New York University. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for The Westerlies and administers the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival.

Head of Tavrida art cluster

Sergey Pershin

Many years of experience in managing federal and international public projects. Organization of effective teams in the field of culture and art, creative industries. Creation of the largest creative project in Russia – Tavrida art cluster.

Founder and Artistic Director A to JazZ Festival

Peter Dimitrov

Peter Dimitrov is the founder and Artistic Director of multiple festivals and events across Bulgaria.He is particularly famous as the founder of the annual A to JazZ Festival, the CEO of the UnmutedMedia LLC event agency, and the Director of the Mediamix International Festival (2012). He alsoheads the AtoZ Foundation. In 2018, he initiated Sofia’s application to host the European JazzConference in 2020

Dimitrov has also established himself as a skilled producer. He was a co-author of the Recipe forCulture Bulgarian TV show (2005-2009), a co-producer and the host of the Party East of Heavenmusic radio program (2009-2011), and the producer of the first “concert movie” to have ever takenplace in Bulgaria – Lord of Rings in Concert (2014-2015).

In 2019, Peter Dimitrov shared his vast expertise becoming the chief lecturer of the Culture EventsManagement course at the Amadeus Art Academy in Sofia.

Head of WOMEX Special Projects, France/Germany


Christine Semba

Consultant, curator and networker, for music and cultural industries. Since 2013, Christine is the head of WOMEX Special Projects, where she has contributed to the creation and development of events for music professionals, conventions and festivals such as Porto Musical, Brazil; Circulart, Colombia; Primera Linea, Cuba; Atlantic Music Expo, Cabo Verde; SOTX Music Expo, China. She has also developed a broad range of international cooperation projects.

She is also the Head of the WOMEX Academy, a capacity building and fellowship programme for music professionals. She has also worked as a consultant/ trainer for internationalization of music and music events in Colombia, Senegal, Jamaica, Barbados, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc.
Christine has also served as an expert for the EU and UNESCO Creative Cities Network since 2013.

Previously, she worked as director of professional music network Zone Franche where she led the EU-funded “ACP Music Festivals Network” and before that, was director of content & programmes at WOMEX for nine years.

The founder of The Kurland Agency

Ted Kurland

Ted Kurland is the founder of The Kurland Agency, which opened its doors in 1975 in Boston. At the time, he was a recent graduate of Brandeis University, where he majored in economics. After Kurland graduated, he first worked for a small Boston talent agency, an invaluable experience that launched his career into the talent booking business. With two partners, he later started All American Talent, an agency that booked primarily blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, George Thorogood, Hound Dog Taylor, and Ko Ko Taylor. All American Talent turned into Ted Kurland Associates, now The Kurland Agency, and the agency’s emphasis shifted to booking jazz artists.
 Eminent jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton was the first artist to become a client of the new company. Soon after, other major performers such as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Bill Evans, Roy Haynes, Milt Jackson, Charles Mingus, Isaac Hayes, Dexter Gordon, Nina Simone, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Jaco Pastorius, Ravi Shankar, Astor Piazzolla, Stephane Grappelli, Tony Williams, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Bela Fleck and many other celebrated jazz musicians joined the growing TKA family of artists.
 Kurland’s client services with some musicians grew to include management and negotiating recording, music publishing, movie soundtrack and video licensing agreements.
 By the early 1980’s, the agency expanded their bookings internationally and became well established in every major market in the world, arranging tours throughout Europe, Asia, and South America and even the former USSR. 

 Although TKA remains well-known for representation of major jazz artists, they now focus on prominent performers from all genres of music such as blues, roots, world, and contemporary singer/songwriters. 

The head of the company “J Group”, producer of festivals: “Wild Mint”, “Zarya”, “VIOLET”.

Andrey Klyukin

Since 1999, he has worked for Nashe Radio, where he worked his way up from producer of the night show to creative director of the News Media Radio Group holding: Nashe Radio, Best FM, ULTRA, combining this work with conducting the AIR program (live concerts). From 2005 to 2007 he was the producer of the festival “Nashestvie”.

In June 2007, he opened the J GROUP company, which holds large and local festivals with attendance from 1,000 to 450,000 people, creates new festival brands, organizes musical events in Moscow.

Victoria is the Executive Director of the International Student Jazz Festival held in the city of Novosibirsk.

Victoria Verba

A Bachelor of Financial and Business Economics – a degree earned at Royal Holloway, University of London – Victoria graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Business in 2020. As of now, she is enrolled in the CopyrightX course at Harvard Law School to become an expert in copyright law.

Throughout her career she has produced concerts featuring such musicians as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Aida Cuevas, Natalia Lafourcade, Danilo Perez, and many others. Victoria works as an A&R and concert manager for various American media companies. She is also the producer of Tristan Simone – an American hip-hop artist and a Lollapalooza performer.

Victoria has been the Ambassador of the Ministry of Culture of Novosibirsk Region and the Director of the International Student Jazz Festival since 2017.

Rector of the Russian Institute of Theatre Art – GITIS.

Grigory Zaslavsky

PhD in Philological Sciences. Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.

Graduated from the Faculty of Theater Studies of the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (1993), the course of Inna Solovieva.

On November 15, 2016, he was elected Rector of the Russian Institute of Theatere – GITIS.

PhD in Philological Sciences (2011). Associate Professor of the Department of History of the Theater of Russia GITIS.

Laureate of the Moscow City Prize.

Member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation of the 7th convocation, First Deputy Chairman of the Commission for the Development of Culture and the Preservation of Moral Heritage (since 2020).

Media Manager of the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic

Daria Bochkareva

In 2011 graduated from Omsk State University named after F.M. Dostoevsky with a degree in Management of socio-cultural activities.

From the age of 18, she worked as a live presenter on regional radio stations. Until 2016 – Project Manager of the Omsk Philharmonic.

She developed and implemented the first summer open-air of classical music in Siberia, the Bolshoi Symphonic Park, which is now held annually in Omsk.

Held a PR campaign for the 75th anniversary of the Omsk Philharmonic “Piano Art Challenge” – the project was awarded First place in the nomination “Corporate Communications” of the National Award in the field of public relations “Silver Archer – Siberia” in 2016.

In 2017, she graduated from the Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences “Shaninka” – Management in the field of culture, received a diploma from the University of Manchester – Master of Arts in cultural management and began teaching at the Production Faculty of GITIS.

Currently, he is the Media Manager of the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic.

Music journalist, curator and vinyl collector

Denis Boyarinov

Denis Boyarinov has been writing about Russian and foreign music for almost 20 years, ranging from underground electronica to pop and rock mainstream phenomena. In the age of paper media he worked in and contributed to the iconic Russian magazines OM, Afisha and Time Out. He is a co-founder of Colta.ru, an independent online media outlet dedicated to culture and art, and is the head of the edition’s Contemporary Music section. Alongside his work as a journalist, he curates music events (Island of the 90s Festival, Sound Up Series), collects vinyl, plays DJ sets, and gives lectures on the history of popular music.

General Director of the Russian Concert Agency, Director of the NEW RUSSIA State Symphony Orchestra

Dmitry Grinchenko

General Director of the “Russian Concert Agency”, Director of the State Symphony Orchestra “New Russia”, General Producer of the Winter International Festival of Arts in Sochi, the All-Russian Youth Symphony Orchestra, a large number of festivals in Russia and abroad, etc.)

Jazz guitarist, composer, winner of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Guitar Competition

Evgeny Pobozhy

Guitarist and composer Evgeny Pobozhy is the first Russian musician to become the winner of the famous Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Guitar Competition 2019, the most significant competition in the world of jazz. As a soloist of the Moscow Jazz Orchestra and leader of his own band, Evgeny took part in many significant events in the jazz world, including the world’s largest festivals (Rochester Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, Lotos Jazz Festival, Jazz Triumph, etc.); performed at major jazz venues around the world (Blue Note jazz club, New York; Ronnie Scott’s, London; A-Trane, Berlin; Blue Note, Beijing, etc.).

In 2018, together with the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, Evgeny took part in The International Jazz Day Global Concert (St. Petersburg), performing on the same stage with world stars of the first magnitude, such as Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Manhattan Transfer, Branford Marsalis, Joey Defransesco. In 2020, Evgeny Pobozhy and Igor Butman became representatives of Russia who took part in The International Jazz Day Virtual Global Concert — an online broadcast dedicated to the International Jazz Day, which included performances by such recognized masters as Marcus Miller, John Scofield, John Mclaughlin, Danilo Perez, Diane Reeves, Lizz Wright, Lee Ritenour and others.

He holds the titles of Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation (1995), Honoured Art Worker of the Russian Federation (2005), and is awarded with the Order of Friendship (2019). 

Leonid Vintskevich

Leonid Vintskevich is a jazz pianist, composer, music educator, organizer, and a public activist who has had a major influence on the development of Russian jazz. He is the founder and art director of the international festival “Jazz Province”. He holds the titles of Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation (1995), Honoured Art Worker of the Russian Federation (2005), and is awarded with the Order of Friendship (2019). 

Leonid Vintskevich is an active concert pianist who regularly takes part in major international jazz festivals in Europe, Russia, America, the CIS, such as Prague International Jazz Festival, Jazzbuehne in Berlin, Jazztage in Leipzig, North Sea Jazz Festival, Jazz in Europe, Baltic Jazz, Jazz Kaar, Turku Jazz Festival, Kaamus Jazz, Silda Jazz, Jazz Stroom, Vilas Jazz Blues, Vilnius Jazz Festival, Jazz Birstonas Festival, and many others. He is one of the original jazz composers who focus on European improvisation music and the 20th century classical music. The pianist’s virtuosity and inventiveness, his unorthodox “explosive” way of thinking, his powerful playing, his passion, his deep-Russian mindset, and Herculean scale have all been highly acclaimed by audiences and critics alike.

Since 1996 Leonid Vintskevich has been the inspirer, organiser and art director of a unique project — the annual international festival “Jazz Province” whose geography extends from Krasnoyarsk to Krasnodar. It is about more than 25 cities, 30 days of touring in the best concert halls of Central Russia, the Volga region, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and more than 100 outstanding musicians from Russia and abroad each year (in total, over the years the festival has been attended by some 2500 artists). In 2013, the Festival and Leonid Vintskevich himself were awarded the prestigious Russian Federation Culture & Art Prize “For Popularisation of Jazz and the Creation and Organization of the Annual International Festival “Jazz Province”.

Founder of the Usadba Jazz Festival and CEO of the ArtMania Event Agency

Maria Semushkina

Maria is an international music expert in organizing large-scale festivals and concerts, the founder of the Usadba Jazz Festival, and the CEO of the ArtMania Event Agency since 2004In 17 years of her career, Maria has founded and produced dozens of city and club festivals and concerts that promote jazz and quality music, the list including Jazz in the Old Town Festival, LeJazz Festival, New Classics Festival, Bi-2’s first symphonic concert,  the international city art festival “Nikolin Day”that featured Emir Kusturica, Evgeny Margulis, Elka, Uma2rman, French street theaters and was attended by more than 70,000 people in just two days.

Maria actively supports and produces young music talents involved in singing-songwriting, jazz, authentic folk, and contemporary classical music.

She has her own blog in Snob Edition, manages the Telegram channel “Semushkina’s Usadba”,hosts various music radio shows, and gives lectures.

The year 2016 marked the beginning of the regular “Semushkina’s Home Concerts”.In 2020 Maria and her festival colleagues launched a social project – the online laboratory Usadba Kids. It culminated in the Forum&Festival of the same name that was held in 4 Russian cities, supporting more than 300 young talents from across the country.

CEO and the art director of Helicon Jazz Club, Novokuznetsk

Olga Yushkova

She is the CEO and the art director of Helicon Jazz Club in the city ofNovokuznetsk.

Olga produces such international festivals as Jazz by the Old Castle, KuZnya jazZ, and the Siberian Encounters Arts Festival. She is also anaward-winning vocalist at several international festivals, and the MP of“A Just Russia – For Truth” political party for the City Assembly.

Founder and the CEO of J&M Group

Maria Voloshina

J&M Group consists of the jazz and musical school “J&M”, the production center “J&M Show”, and the non-profit creative center of excellence “Musical Discovery”. Maria is also an ICF coach, business expert, and a producer.

A&R Manager of ONErpm Russia

Kamilla Nizamova

She has a background in FMCG, TV production (she managed outside broadcasting of various sport events including the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and 2018 FIFA World Cup), live TV production of concerts and music shows, managing jazz gigs and artists.

At ONErpm Russia she is in charge of customer discovery, negotiations with artists and label officials, customer integration, artists technical assistance, and marketing planning.

Founder of Lanote Education

Andrey Lipatov

He is a Master in Pedagogy, member of Expert Council of Moscow’s Center ofExcellence for Arts, course designer, pianist, winner of international contests.

In the spring of 2019 Andrey founded Lanote Education, a music training center serving as an entire ecosystem where musicians and educators of any level can upgrade their competence using top professionals’ best practices. In just 2 years the center has been venue for 32 offline and 240 online educational events that brought together 8300 attendees from across 14 countries. The list of speakers included leading musicians from Russia, Europe and the US, such as Bob Stoloff, Jamey Aebersold, Gretchen Parlato, Ari Hoenig, Evgeny Lebedev, Evgeny Pobozhiy, and many othеrs.

Organizer of such international jazz festivals as Moving and Moving Club Meets Friends.

Denis Rybakov

He is the organizer of such international jazz festivals as Moving and Moving Club Meets Friends. He also programs the Samara Open Jazz Festival and is the founder of the MovingClub Camp.

Denis is the Director of the Moving Jazz Studio that includes a jazz school, concert agency, and a range of other projects geared to promoting jazz in the region of Samara. He is also the head of the Melomania Music School.

Musician, Art Manager of Art and Culture Public Foundation, Kyrgyzstan

Munara Korpotaeva

Munara Korpotaeva is a pianist, musician, and an art manager. Her primary focus is classical, jazz, and experimental music. She worked as the art manager of the JazzBishkek Spring Festival for 5 years.

Today Munara works at the Art and Culture Public Foundation, which she and her fellow thinkers founded in 2018 She is also a career pianist at the Kyrgyz National Conservatory.

Munara has taken part in such international projects as the Unsound DislocationBishkek Electronic Music Festival, Playing Together: Central Asian Academy ofContemporary Music, and others.She is a graduate of Goethe-Institut’s Cultural Academy for Art Managers.

Musician, artist and composer at the Ilkhom Theatre of Mark Weil, Uzbekistan

Sanjar Nafikov

Sanjar Nafikov is a musician, artist, and a composer at the Ilkhom Theatre of Mark Weil. He graduated from the Conservatory of Uzbekistan with a degree in piano performance. He has been a frequent participant in Central Asian jazz festivals since 2009 He also works as the art director and the pianist for the Tashkent band Jazzirama that explores the fusion of jazz and traditional Uzbek music.

Sanjar is a co-founder of the Ilkhom Jazz Club in Tashkent. In 2014-2016 he was a band member of the world music star Sevara.

Since 2015 Sanjar has been playing contemporary music in Omnibus Ensemble, which, among other things, delves into traditional Uzbek music, and in Omnibus Jazz Lab, an international cross-genre project.

Music Works International’s (MWI) booking agent and promoter

Luigi Sidero

European agent and promoter Luigi Sidero, a veteran of the European jazz scene whohas worked with some of the most refined jazz artists and festivals in Europe, assumedresponsibility for Music Works International’s (MWI) bookings in Central & EasternEurope. MWI is one of the few global jazz booking agencies with a dedicated agentbased in Europe. With a vast experience in musical scene and a long career as a jazzpianist, he is seeking new challenges and responsibilities to take his professionalism tothe next level.

Founder of the Jazzist online magazine

Lev Borovkov

​​​​​​​Lev Borovkov was born in Moscow in 1985 He is trained as a lawyer specializing in intellectual property, media and broadcasting. He spent his university days studying classical guitar and learning music from the records by his favourite jazz and blues guitarists.

In May 2020 he created the jazz Telegram channel The Lost Chords. In August, together with the Alexey Kozlov Club’s art director Araik Akopian and the bloggerAlexander Anoshin, he founded the Jazzist online magazine (jazzist.ru). Thanks to the sound producer Andrey Levin, the magazine soon evolved into an entire label. Today the label’s catalogue includes the albums My Story by Dmitry Ilugdin’s Trio andAntigravity by Anna Koroleva.

Composer, director of the Dushanbe International Ethnic and Jazz Festival

Jasur Khalilov

Jasur Khalilov is a composer, pianist, and the director of the Dushanbe InternationalEthnic and Jazz Festival. He has inspired multiple musical projects, such as Khalil Brothers Trio, Modern Tajik Music, Jasur Khalilov Trio, both in Tajikistan and beyond.Having made an invaluable contribution to contemporary music in Central Asia, Jasur has been awarded numerous diplomas and accolades from various international jazz and ethnic festivals.

The year 2021 marked the release of his solo album Oriental Love Tales on the Germanlabel Hofa. Jasur often tours across Europe with prominent local musicians. He is theonly musician in Tajikistan to take part in the annual International Jazz Day celebrationorganized by jazz legend Herbie Hencock.

For over 6 years Jasur has been the director of the Dushanbe International Ethnic andJazz Festival, which is the venue for concerts and workshops by jazz musicians from allover the world.

Jazz researcher, editor of Jazz.AzJazz researcher, editor of Jazz.Az

Turan Mamedalieva

​​​​​​​Turan Mamedalieva has a PhD in Arts and is an Associate Professor in the MusicTheory Department at the Hajibeyov Baku Academy of Music. She was born onMay 21 in 1976 in Baku. She is a graduate of music history and theory from the Hajibeyov Baku Academy of Music, a jazz researcher, the editor of Jazz.Az, and a senior officer in the Music Division of the Arts Department in the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan.

Turan was a participant in the International Jazz Day in 2012, 2015, and 2018 She is the founder and programmer of the 1st International Festival and the ArtSeminar of the 8th International Jazz Day (2019). She is also the initiator of the Jazzery Voices Association and the Jazzery Voices Project that celebrates the100th anniversary of the Hajibeyov Baku Academy of Music. Turan is the author of the monograph on the work of Jamil Amirov, a prominent Azerbaijani composer. She also wrote Jazz Harmony Elements in the Works of AzerbaijaniComposers and contributed to countless articles and interviews.

Publicist and promoter

Arlette Hovinga

Arlette Hovinga (or That Jazz Girl) is a publicist and promoter based in Rotterdam, theNetherlands. With roots in tour advancing, production, and programming, she now focuses onpromoting festivals and musicians in Europe. Over the last few months she has focused onpromoting Igor Butman’s new release Only Now (Oct. 18) which was very well received; it evenlanded him on the cover of the prestigious Jazz in Europe Magazine. When she’s not on theroad with a gang of jazz journalists, she teaches at the Dutch Rock Academy, where she helpsmusicians perfect their pitches, and spends the rest of her time committed to a project rosterincluding Polish saxophonist Sylwester Ostrowski’s Szczecin Jazz Festival, the Jazz Orchestra ofthe Concertgebouw, the Amersfoort World Jazz Festival and the brand new Sicilia Jazz Festivalin Italy.

Program Director of Jazz Across Borders

Dina Nurgaleeva

In 2010 she graduated from the State University of Management with a degree inManagement in cinema and TV. In 2013, she received her PhD in Economics. She worked indifferent fields such as film-making (projects of director Ilya Khotinenko), television (RussiaToday channel) and tourism (the Ritz Carlton hotel).Dina started her business career in music as the manager of Jazz Dance Orchestra. In 2016,she founded Magnetophone Music Agency. Co-producer of the annual open air festival Cityof Jazz at Aptekarsky Garden of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University.Programm Director of Jazz Across Borders forum & festival within St. PetersburgInternational Cultural Forum. Programm Director of International Jazz Day in St. Petersburgin 2018

Editor-in-chief of Jazz.ru

Kirill MOSHKOW

His career in music journalism started in early 1990s, he broadcasted as DJ and special shows on-air host on several radio stations in Moscow, wrote about music for magazines and newspapers, provided copy and voice-over for TV shows about music, and edited jazz news for a news agency. In 1998, he was invited to Russia’s newborn Jazz Web outlet, Jazz.Ru, as managing editor; since 2006, he is also the publisher at Jazz.Ru Magazine.

He contributed for several jazz magazines in the U.S. and in Europe (DownBeat, AllAboutJazz.Com, Jazz Forum, Jazz.Pt, Jazzthetik etc.) Since 2014, he is a board member at the Russian Jazz research center in Yaroslavl. He also serves as coordinator of Europe Jazz Media, the ring of European jazz magazines.

Moshkow wrote several books in Russian on jazz and African American music, most notably Jazz Industry in America and The Blues, Introduction to the History. He also authored chapters on the history of jazz in Russia for Pearson’s Discover Jazz (2011) and for The History of European Jazz The Music (2017).

Chief Executive of A&R ONErpm Russia

Nadezhda Boychevcki

Professional music manager, event planner, music video director.

Throughout her professional career she has been a music market expert for Universal Music Group; the general producer of Hajime Rec; the executive producer of Respect Production; the special project manager of Russian National Artist Konstantin Khabensky’s Charitable Organization. She teaches music management at Moscow Music School. She is a trustee in the charitable organization Save the Life and has a relevant experience in organizing special events.

Deputy director of the Jazz Academy, trombonist, conductor, composer and arranger

Pavel Ovchinnikov

Pavel collaborated with the jazz orchestras of Kim Nazaretov, Georgy Garanyan, Sergey Zhilin and Berlin International Orchestra.  Since 2004 Pavel has been playing at the Moscow Jazz Orchestra conducted by Igor Butman. 

Since 2014, Pavel Ovchinnikov has been leading the orchestra class and teaching jazz trombone at the Department of Jazz & Pop Music at the Maimonides State Classical Academy.  In 2017-2019 he occupied a position of the deputy director of the State College of Brass Art, now Pavel is the first deputy director of the Jazz Academy.

Pavel is the artistic director of the Jazz Triumph for Kids international jazz festival & competition and the musical director of the The Future of Jazz international festival. 

Pavel’s arrangements and musical pieces are performed by many famous musicians both in Russia and abroad.

Jazz vocalist, director of Art Of Jazz Company, director of international jazz festivals

Olga Skepner

Olga Skepner is a founder and music director of the International Festival of Improvisational Music «Jazz in the Kremlin with Olga Skepner» (Kazan, Tatarstan), the International Music Festival Hόtel de ville (Kazan, Tatarstan) and the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Brunswick Diagonals” (Germany-Russia).

In 2006, she founded the production center «Art of Jazz Company», which promotes modern improvisational and jazz music, the genres of ethno jazz and world music. In 2010, she became an organizer of the Days of French Culture in Kazan, as part of which the Jazz music festival «Le Jazz» was held in Kazan. In 2011, she was a director of the State Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan at the Tuqay Tatar State Philharmonia.

Since 2013, as a singer, she has been cooperating with jazz pianist and composer Andrei Rudenko. In the same year she founded a group, which included famous Russian jazz musicians. Director of famous Russian pianist and composer Evgeny Borets and “Evgeny Borets Trio”.

Director and founder of The International Boutique Festival CHESS & JAZZ, program director of The Bosco Fresh Fest, CEO of I’M IN booking agency

Nick Babin

Nick is a graduate of musical management faculty of Gnessin Russian Academy of Music.  He has been a program director of the Bosco Fresh Fest since 2012. Nik founded the CHESS & JAZZ festival in 2018, which is held with a great success in Moscow, Singapore and Almaty. Nick has organized concerts for such artists as Gregory Porter, Gogo Penguin, Cory Henry & Funk Apostles, James Blake, John Newman, Ceelo Green, Roisin Murphy.

Musicologist at Chelyabinsk State Philharmonic, journalist, concert host

Natalya Rikker

Natalya is the initiator and scriptwriter for a wide range of theatrical shows by Igor Burko’s Ural Dixieland. As a part of it she participated in jazz festivals in Russia and abroad and has been the ensemble’s director since 2016. Natalya is an artistic director and host of the Spring beat international jazz festival, and artistic director and host of What A Wonderful World international jazz festival. Ms Rikker is the author of different broadcasts at Chelyabinsk radio stations, including Jazz Time weekly program aired from 2003 to 2007. She worked as well for the Culture News project at South Ural State Television and Radio Company. Ms Rikker has published a dozen of articles devoted to Chelyabinsk musical life. She teaches the history of pop music styles at  South Ural State Institute of Arts P.I. Tchaikovsky.

Producer and director of the Jazz May Festval, enterpriser

Oleg Rubtsov

In 2010, Oleg Rubtsov decided to return to Penza and open an intellectual literature store called “Vpereplete. Other books” (2010-2015). Among the writers who spoke to the audience of the store, Dmitry Bykov, Irina Khakamada, Vera Polozkova and others. Since 2010, Oleg has been involved in organizing major urban cultural events, including the Humanitarian Forum “Searching for The Province” (2013- 2014), the Ivan Mozzhukhin Film Featival “A Male Role”.

Oleg developed a project of the Penza Book Fair, in 2013-2015, he worked as its producer and director. The fair was held with the support of the Government of the Penza Region (2013) and the Administration of the city of Penza (2014) in the framework of the Humanitarian Forum “Searching for The Province”. In 2015, it gained the status of an autonomous event. In 2012, Oleg joined the organizing committee of the International Jazz May Music Festival, established by the Department of Culture and Archives of the Penza Region. Since 2014, he has been the producer and director of the festival.

international projects and international booking coordinator at Kozlov Club and City Jazz Festival

Elena Moiseyenko

In 2005, she joined the ArtMania agency as a press officer and coordinator of music projects. In2007, she became the Music Director. For more than ten years, she has been the program managerfor the Usadba Jazz Festival in Moscow and other cities. She also selects and books internationalartists for the agency’s projects, such as Le Jazz Festival, City Jazz and Moscow Jazz Festivals, Festivalof Korean Culture in Russia, and Bossa Nova Festival. Throughout her ArtMania years, Elenaorganized concerts and tours for such artists as the British jazz star Jammie Cullum, bass playerRichard Bona (USA), double bassist Avishai Cohen (Israel), Melody Gardot (USA), Pink Martini (USA),legendary guitarist John McLaughlin (UK), Jean Scofield (USA), Branford Marsalis (USA), Earth Windand Fire Experience feat. Al Mckay (USA), and many others. She organized the cabaret Crazy Horse(France) and the cabaret Tropicana (Cuba) for private parties.Since she joined Kozlov Club in the autumn of 2019, they have implemented a number ofinternational projects, including workshops by Richard Bona, Robert Glasper, and Avishai Cohen, aswell as various concerts.

General director of the Krasnoyarsk Philharmonic

Yevgeny STODUSHNY

In June 2018, according to the results of an open competition,Yevgeny Stodushny assumed the post of General Director ofthe Krasnoyarsk Regional Philharmonia — one of the largestconcert organizations beyond the Urals. From 2007 to 2018, heworked as Deputy Director for Planning Concerts and FinancialActivities at the Virtuosi of Moscow State Chamber Orchestra.Alongside his professional activity, from 2010 to 2012, heunderwent an advanced training course at the DeVos Instituteof Arts Management (Washington, USA), where he trained in themarketing and fundraising departments of the Kennedy Centerfor the Performing Arts.Being invited to the Moscow Art Theater School Studio,Evgeny wrote and taught the course «Production Activity in theMusic and Concert Sphere». He participates as an expert in theseminars of the Union of the Concert Organizations of Russia.

Art director and managing director of Kozlov Club

Araik Akopyan

Araik is producer of BazzDay Ferstival, FuzzionDay Festival, Tilli Milli Jazz Festival and City Jazz Festival, co-founder the Jazzist media blog. He is Art director and managing director of Kozlov Club.

SAXOPHONIST, PRODUCER, PEOPLE’S ARTIST OF RUSSIA,
PRESIDENT OF IGOR BUTMAN MUSIC GROUP,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MOSCOW JAZZ ORCHESTRA,
PRESIDENT OF JAB FORUM&FESTIVAL

IGOR BUTMAN

Igor Butman is justly considered as the top advocate of Russian jazz art in the world. In 1999 he founded his internationally acclaimed Igor Butman Orchestra (now — Moscow Jazz Orchestra),  Quartet and Quintet, described by DownBeat Magazine as «an outfit of virtuosos». In past 20 years Igor Butman along with his bands toured dozens of countries and performed at the world’s biggest festivals.

Igor Butman released 17 albums both as a leader and co-leader, including Magic Land (Sony Classical) featuring Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, John Patitucci, Stefon Harris and Randy Brecker. 

Igor Butman Music Group, led by Mr Butman, consists of the Igor Butman Jazz Club in Moscow, the Butman Music Records and the biggest Russian jazz concert agency IBMG, which runs 12 jazz festivals in Russia and represents the finest Russian artists abroad.

In 2016 Igor Butman was elected the President of the Russian Authors’ Society (Russian equivalent of ASCAP). In 2018 he became the initiator and co-artistic director (along with Herbie Hancock) of the International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Since 2019 Mr Butman has been the head of the first Jazz Academy in thehistory of Russia.

Head of international projects department at Igor Butman Music Group, executive producer of JAB forum&festival Russian and VII International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg

ROMAN KHRISTYUK

Gnesin Academy of Music and Moscow State Academy of Law alumnus Roman Khristyuk started working with Igor Butman in 2005 as PR manager of Le Club (now Igor Butman Club). In 2006-2008 he collaborated with the Independent newspaper in Moscow as a concert observer. Now Roman is the executive producer of the Jazz Across Borders forum&festival and the head of international projects at Igor Butman Music Group, adding to it he’s working on worldwide tours for Igor Butman and Moscow Jazz Orchestra. Among IBMG’s international projects are Sochi Jazz Festival (Sochi), Triumph of Jazz (Moscow and St. Petersburg), Jazz Seasons at Gorky Leninsky (Moscow region), Future of Jazz (Moscow), Sakhalin-Hokkaido Jazz (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sapporo), World Jazz Festival (Riga) and Skolkovo Jazz Festival (Skolkovo Innovation Center). Roman Khristyuk teaches PR and concert management at Music Management Faculty of Russian Gnesin Academy of Music. In 2018, as an executive producer, he led the working groupon the preparation and holding of the VII International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Program Director of Jazz Across Borders

Dina Nurgaleeva

In 2010 she graduated from the State University of Management with a degree inManagement in cinema and TV. In 2013, she received her PhD in Economics. She worked indifferent fields such as film-making (projects of director Ilya Khotinenko), television (RussiaToday channel) and tourism (the Ritz Carlton hotel).Dina started her business career in music as the manager of Jazz Dance Orchestra. In 2016,she founded Magnetophone Music Agency. Co-producer of the annual open air festival Cityof Jazz at Aptekarsky Garden of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University.Programm Director of Jazz Across Borders forum & festival within St. PetersburgInternational Cultural Forum. Programm Director of International Jazz Day in St. Petersburgin 2018

Editor-in-chief of Jazz.ru

Kirill MOSHKOW

His career in music journalism started in early 1990s, he broadcasted as DJ and special shows on-air host on several radio stations in Moscow, wrote about music for magazines and newspapers, provided copy and voice-over for TV shows about music, and edited jazz news for a news agency. In 1998, he was invited to Russia’s newborn Jazz Web outlet, Jazz.Ru, as managing editor; since 2006, he is also the publisher at Jazz.Ru Magazine.

He contributed for several jazz magazines in the U.S. and in Europe (DownBeat, AllAboutJazz.Com, Jazz Forum, Jazz.Pt, Jazzthetik etc.) Since 2014, he is a board member at the Russian Jazz research center in Yaroslavl. He also serves as coordinator of Europe Jazz Media, the ring of European jazz magazines.

Moshkow wrote several books in Russian on jazz and African American music, most notably Jazz Industry in America and The Blues, Introduction to the History. He also authored chapters on the history of jazz in Russia for Pearson’s Discover Jazz (2011) and for The History of European Jazz The Music (2017).

Chief Executive of A&R ONErpm Russia

Nadezhda Boychevcki

Professional music manager, event planner, music video director.

Throughout her professional career she has been a music market expert for Universal Music Group; the general producer of Hajime Rec; the executive producer of Respect Production; the special project manager of Russian National Artist Konstantin Khabensky’s Charitable Organization. She teaches music management at Moscow Music School. She is a trustee in the charitable organization Save the Life and has a relevant experience in organizing special events.

Pianist, member of the LRK TRIO, member of the Moscow Union of composers

Evgeny Lebedev

A graduate of Berklee College of Music (Boston), winner of the Montreux piano competition(Switzerland), Made in New York Jazz competition (USA), and winner of a special award fromBillboard magazine.

international projects and international booking coordinator at Kozlov Club and City Jazz Festival

Elena Moiseyenko

In 2005, she joined the ArtMania agency as a press officer and coordinator of music projects. In2007, she became the Music Director. For more than ten years, she has been the program managerfor the Usadba Jazz Festival in Moscow and other cities. She also selects and books internationalartists for the agency’s projects, such as Le Jazz Festival, City Jazz and Moscow Jazz Festivals, Festivalof Korean Culture in Russia, and Bossa Nova Festival. Throughout her ArtMania years, Elenaorganized concerts and tours for such artists as the British jazz star Jammie Cullum, bass playerRichard Bona (USA), double bassist Avishai Cohen (Israel), Melody Gardot (USA), Pink Martini (USA),legendary guitarist John McLaughlin (UK), Jean Scofield (USA), Branford Marsalis (USA), Earth Windand Fire Experience feat. Al Mckay (USA), and many others. She organized the cabaret Crazy Horse(France) and the cabaret Tropicana (Cuba) for private parties.Since she joined Kozlov Club in the autumn of 2019, they have implemented a number ofinternational projects, including workshops by Richard Bona, Robert Glasper, and Avishai Cohen, aswell as various concerts.

General director of the Krasnoyarsk Philharmonic

Yevgeny STODUSHNY

In June 2018, according to the results of an open competition,Yevgeny Stodushny assumed the post of General Director ofthe Krasnoyarsk Regional Philharmonia — one of the largestconcert organizations beyond the Urals. From 2007 to 2018, heworked as Deputy Director for Planning Concerts and FinancialActivities at the Virtuosi of Moscow State Chamber Orchestra.Alongside his professional activity, from 2010 to 2012, heunderwent an advanced training course at the DeVos Instituteof Arts Management (Washington, USA), where he trained in themarketing and fundraising departments of the Kennedy Centerfor the Performing Arts.Being invited to the Moscow Art Theater School Studio,Evgeny wrote and taught the course «Production Activity in theMusic and Concert Sphere». He participates as an expert in theseminars of the Union of the Concert Organizations of Russia.

Senior Advisor to the Theatre Division in the Department of State Support for Art and Folk Art of the Russian Ministry of Culture

Maria Lebedeva

Art director and managing director of Kozlov Club

Araik Akopyan

Araik is producer of BazzDay Ferstival, FuzzionDay Festival, Tilli Milli Jazz Festival and City Jazz Festival, co-founder the Jazzist media blog. He is Art director and managing director of Kozlov Club.

Co-owner of the PR Agency “Bedush & Marennikova”

Elena Bedos

PhD in art history, graduated from the Moscow state Conservatory, MBA at the Russian-German Higher School of Management at The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

The Agency’s portfolio includes work with major music and non-music festivals (Alfa Future People, Usadba Jazz, Bosco Fresh Fest, Sound Up, Rock over the Volga, wild Mint, Moscow Urban Forum, Moscow Flower Show, Inspiration for VDNH and many others), leading Moscow theaters and museums, concerts of Russian and International artists.

CEO of tMotion Production Company

Maxim Timoshin

Max is a professional saxophonist. He graduated from the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music and played in the orchestra conducted by Georgy Garanian.

In 2002, he joined Igor Butman Production Centre as the PR manager of the legendary Le Club.

From 2005 to 2008, he was the executive producer of the Stories in Details program on STS TV channel. In 2008, he founded the production company tMotion that organizes and promotes various events.

He promoted concerts of such stars as Carlos Santana, GAROU, Kenny G, Chris Botti, David Sanborn, Mario Biondi, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Candy Dulfer, Freddy Cole, Stanley Clark, Jane Monheit, Carla Bruni, Hibla Gerzmava, Yolka, and such projects as Usadba Jazz Festival 2016, French cabaret Lido, Philip Treacy’s hats exhibition, Moscow Symphony Orchestra Russian Philharmonic, etc.

Max Timoshin is the founder of Jazz in Motion — a series of jazz concerts by Russian and foreign artists. For more than 10 years, this project has been held at various Moscow venues: art-cafe Durov, Scenario Cafe, the St. Regis Moscow Hotel, etc.

Director of educational programs in the Sphere of Culture and Art of Department of Culture of Moscow

Ekaterina Kalachikova

Musician, pianist, Director of educational programs in the Sphere of Culture and Art of Department of Culture of Moscow, Dean of the faculty of Management of socio-cultural projects in the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Master of Arts of University of Manchester.

Producer of education programs of the Presidential grands Foundation

Ekaterina Dorman

Ekaterina graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2005 In 2007 graduated from Higher courses of Screenwriters and Directors, Director’s workshop of Vladimir Khotinenko. From 2015 to 2017 she was a head of charity projects of the crowdfunding platform Planeta.ru and Director of e-commerce. Expert of the “Community” forum of the Public chamber of the Russian Federation. In 2017-2019 Founder and Director of the online store of goods for social entrepreneurs “Four”.

Executive Director of the Digital education platforms division of Sberbank

Yuriy Izosimov

Deputy Director of the Department of state support for art and folk art of the Ministry of culture of Russia

Edita Isaakyan

Program Director of Vladimir Potanin Foundation

Oksana Fodina

Oksana joined the Foundation’s team in December 2018 She manages the programs and projects in the field of culture. She worked in a range of non-profit organizations, such as charity foundation Volnoe Delo, New Eurasia Foundation, Institute for Law and Public Policy, Eurasia Foundation (USA), Center for Constitutional Studies at Moscow Public Science Foundation, and Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Oksana implements social and charitable projects in various fields of higher and secondary education, promotes entrepreneurship and local communities, and organizes various corporate events. She was responsible for the full project cycle: concept development, budgeting, expertise, preparation of information and reporting materials for internal and external use, organization of project events, communication with stakeholders, etc.

Oksana has a degree in philology from Moscow Pedagogical State University, MBA in marketing from Moscow international higher business school MIRBIS, and a degree in Social Management from Higher School of Economics.

Director of EverJazz Club

Irina Shchetnikova

She is the organizer of the following projects: EverJazz Club, EverJazz Centre, EverJazz.KIDS, EverJazz Contest, EverJazz International Festival; Ural Terra Jazz International Festival, Festival of Contemporary Jewish Culture, International Jazz Day in Yekaterinburg, Festival of Ballroom Pianists, etc.

She actively cooperates with all relevant entities, organizations, promoters and musicians.

She popularizes and promotes jazz on the ground, as well as leads various training and awareness-raising campaigns in the field. She also promotes and supports jazz among children, provides a setting for young musicians to realize their creative potential, and encourages their professional growth.

EverJazz Club founded in 2009, is a venue for daily concerts by professional music bands. It holds around 520 concerts annually, and is visited by some 30,000 people every year.

Irina is a jazz promoter and producer.

artistic director of Duc de Lombards, producer of Nice Jazz Festival, head of TSF Jazz

SÉBASTIEN VIDAL

Sébastien Vidal is is a central figure in French jazz.

He is the artistic director of the essential Parisian jazz club Le Duc des Lombards, where artists from France and around the world come to perform.

Abroad, he actively contributes to promoting and disseminating work from the French jazz scene, particularly in New York, where he organizes the annual French Quarter jazz festival.

Finally, he contributes more broadly to spreading jazz in his role as director of TSFJAZZ, a jazz radio station boasting more than 430,000 listeners daily. He also programs several mainstream jazz festivals. He has written for the magazine Jazzmag and for L’Humanité Dimanche. Today he writes for Jazz News. He is a member of the Académie du jazz.

Music bookings coordinator of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London

PAUL PACE

Ronnie Scott’s has remained a central constant in Paul’s lifelong love affair with jazz. He first visited the club to see the seemingly effortlessly swinging US tenor sax legend Zoot Sims in 1972 Since then, Paul has experienced a countless number of astonishing performances there from the likes of Stephane Grappelli, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Freddie Hubbard, Machito, Woody Shaw, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, Buddy Rich, Horace Silver, Oscar Peterson, Anita O’Day and of course on many occasions the guv’nor himself Ronnie Scott – his jokes as well as his storming quintet. Over the past 10 years, Paul has made focused efforts to present European jazz in London, particularly collaborations with Norwegian, Czech, Latvian and Dutch-based musicians and is keen to further links with the vibrant global scene as well as the currently burgeoning UK scene. Paul has sat on the judging panel of the international Riga Jazz Stage contest for 5 consecutive years and visits overseas festivals regularly.

Before joining the Ronnie’s music bookings team in 2009, Paul worked in architecture and illustration but the pull of the music was so powerful that as a jazz fan and semi-pro singer he became more involved with live jazz promotion, particularly his longstanding residency at the Spice of Life, Soho (20 years). He also possesses extensive experience in specialist record retail (9 years at Ray’s Jazz), is an avid collector and unwavering champion of the music. In 2008 he received the All-Party Parliamentary Award for Services to Jazz.

General Manager of Europe Jazz Network

Giambattista Tofoni

Giambattista Tofoni started his career as a musician and switched to the production field in 1985. He organised more than 2000 concerts at the most important Italian festivals (Ravenna, Verona, Mantova, Crossroads, TAM, La Biennale in Venice, etc.). In 2010, he became a Board member of I-Jazz, the Italian Jazz Federation. He is one of the founding members of EJN in 1987 and has been its General Manager since 2010. He is currently responsible for EJN’s vision, strategy and work program; overseeing the work of the staff/ focal points/working groups; representing EJN and its interests; leading on relationships with other European cultural networks and other relevant bodies.

Managing Director Nasjonal Jazzscene – Victoria

Jan Ole Otnæs

WBGO journalist

Sheila Elaine Anderson

Always interested in jazz, in 1995 Ms. Anderson joined the staff of WBGO, Newark, New Jersey where she hosts Weekend Jazz After Hours and Salon Sessions and Sunday Night Music Mix. She has authored four books: The Quotable Musician: From Bach to Tupac (2003), The Little Red Book of Musicians’ Wisdom (Skyhorse Press, 2012). How to Grow as A Musician: What All Musicians Must Know to Succeed (2005), the second edition is set to publish in November, 2019 As festival producer her work includes curator of the Newark Museum’s Jazz in the Garden Series and a Columbia University Community Scholar, class of 2017. 

CEO of Martinico Music & People, Director of the JazzCádiz Festival

Marina Fernández

Marina Fernández is the founder and CEO of Martinico Music & People, and the director of the JazzCádiz Festival since 2008 From 2014 to 2019, she was a music promoter at CAMM Jazz School.

She is also the president of the Andalusian jazz association Andajazz since 2015, director of the Andalusian jazz booking agency Martinico Music & People, director of the international Jazz showcase festival and conference Jazzahara, endorsed by the Government and AC / E Agency . She is a member of the National Jazz Festival Association Platforma Jazz España .

Jazz singer, 5-time Grammy Award winner Dianne Reeves is a five-time Grammy Award winner and one of the leading singers in the world. Dianne began her career as a studio...

Dianne Reeves

Jazz singer, 5-time Grammy Award winner

Dianne Reeves is a five-time Grammy Award winner and one of the leading singers in the world. Dianne began her career as a studio vocalist, working with Lenny White, Stanley Turrentine and Billy Childs, and later on she toured with Sérgio Mendes and Harry Belafonte. Reeve’s albums, released in the 90s on the Blue Note label, cemented her position as a unique vocalist. She was invited to perform at the closing of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Her album “Beautiful Life”, recorded with many stars, was awarded a Grammy Award in 2015 as the best jazz album. In April 2018, Reeves was honoured with a Jazz Master Award, the highest award for jazz artists in the USA, by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Trumpeter and composer, 9-time Grammy Award winner, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer and bandleader, an educator and a leading advocate...

Wynton Marsalis

Trumpeter and composer, 9-time Grammy Award winner, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center

Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer and bandleader, an educator and a leading advocate of American culture from New Orleans. He has revitalized the popularity of jazz. Thanks to Wynton Marsalis, 1996 saw the release of the first ever jazz TV program. He has created and performed an expansive range of music from quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras and tap dance to ballet, expanding the vocabulary for jazz and classical music with a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers. Wynton Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards. In 1983, at the age of 22, he became the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards for both jazz and classical records. He repeated this distinction by winning jazz and classical Grammys again in 1984. In 1997, Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz musician ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his epic oratorio Blood On The Fields. After his first album was released in 1982, he won the DownBeat magazine surveys in the categories Musician of the Year, Trumpeter of the Year and Album of the Year. In 2017, Wynton Marsalis became one of the youngest inductees in

Co-founder and CEO of the production company Team + 1 and the design studio High Five

Maxim Sheluntsov

Maxim graduated from Moscow University for the Humanities with a degree in Public Relations. In 2012, he founded the production company Team + 1 The company has been involved in the concerts of Madonna and Sting, opening of the Gogol Center, concert of Glenn Miller in the Moscow Performing Arts Center, immersive show the Returned, and the festivals Context. Diana Vishneva and Usadba Jazz.

Maxim teaches media planning and PR as part of Music Business and Entertainment Industry Management at RMA Business School.

Commercial director of Radario

Darya Bednaya

In 2014, she graduated from Saint Petersburg University with a degree in Political Sciences. She had started her professional career in culture and event planning in 2010 as the creative manager of the PMI Corporation’s project yatalant.ru. In 2012-2013 she was the art director of Geometria TV. In 2013, she joined Radario, an international developer of software for business automation in the cultural and entertainment industries, as the marketing and PR director. In 2014, she was one of the founders of the federal project Theater.Go that was designed to popularize electronic tickets and to attract the young Internet audience to theatres. Since 2017, Darya has been the commercial director of Radario.

Trumpeter, host of TV channel Russia-Culture, producer, Merited Artist of Tatarstan

Vadim Eilenkrig

Vadim is a winner of the Musician of the Year Award, according to Radio Jazz 89.1. He has recorded 5 solo albums — The Shadow of Your Smile (2010) Eilenkrig (2012), 1000/1 (2016, limited edition), Point of View (2017), and Newborn (2020). The album Eilenkrig peaked at №4 in Russian iTunes (Top 200 Jazz Chart) and at №1 in Armenia (Top 200 Tracks Armenia All Genre Chart).

Since 2016, he has been the art director of the Wind of Change Festival (Kazan, Russia). In January 2020, this project was staged in Carnegie Hall in New York.

Since 2019, Vadim has been the art director of the Jazz Summer with Eilenkrig festival in Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.

He was the host of the program Big Jazz on channel Russia-Culture (2013), and the co-host and bandleader of the show Dancing with the Stars on channel Russia-1 (2016). Since 2018, he has been the host of the original music program Shabolovka Club, 37 on channel Russia-Culture.

He is a member of the jury in the annual International Television Contest for Young Musicians The Nutcracker.

Journalist, music reporter of the Kommersant newspaper, radio host, producer, teacher

Boris Barabanov

Since 2003, he has been a music reporter for the Kommersant publishing house. He interviewed Paul McCartney, Sting, Patti Smith, U2, Ozzy Osbourne, Nick Cave, R.E.M., Iron Maiden, Metallica, Placebo, Depeche Mode.

In 2012-2013, he was the music producer in Urgant Late Night Show on Channel 1

He is a teacher at the innovative educational institution RMA Business School, where he specializes in Music Management, and at the School of Music Management in Saint Petersburg. In May 2011, as part of his RMA work, he implemented a student educational program in London with the UK music industry leaders.

Art-director of JAM Club, founder of concert agency Pro Jazz

Anton Raktovich

Since 2016, he has organized more than 3,000 concerts in Andrey Makarevich’s JAM Club. He is one of the founders and the main organizer of the international jazz festival VR JAZZ Fest.

Anton organized jazz concerts of Andrey Makarevich, concerts of the American cellist Ian Maksin, and “no celebrity” sellout concerts in grand halls.

He is the teacher of a joint course by Timepad and Netology “How to Make Money out of Your Event”, the author of the webinars “Promoting Concerts”, a member of the jury of the New Open Showcase festival in Ekaterinburg, member of the jury of the jazz competition-festival Jazz Birds-2020.

Rector of the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, winner of the Russian Federation Government Award, Doctor in Art History, Full Professor

Alexander Ryzhinsky

Since 2016, Alexnader Ryzhinsky has been acting as Deputy Chairman of the Federal Higher Education Methodological Association in Music, as Deputy Chairman of the Coordination Council of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation in the field of Art and Culture, and a member of the expert working group in the National Council for Professional Qualifications that represents higher education institutions of culture and art. Since 2013, he has been an expert of the Federal Education and Science Supervision Agency, and has been periodically acting as the head of expert groups involved in state educational accreditation.

The Altro Coro Gnesins’ Ensemble of Contemporary Choral Music, established by Ryzhinsky in 2010, is now a renowned performer of avant-garde and post-avant-garde music in Russia and abroad. The Interkultur Foundation (Germany) has placed the Ensemble on the list of ten top-ranked choirs in the world.

Ryzhinsky is also known as the author of more than 50 research papers and books on studying and performing choral music of the 20th and 21st centuries, including his book “Choral Music of Arnold Schoenberg”.

Founder and leading expert of music project development agency InSimple, lecturer at RMA business school

ALEXEI NIKOLAEV

He was a music editor on channels Muz TV and NTV+, art director of the clubs Kult and Propaganda, and the director of the copyright department of the Zvooq music service.

He provided recruitment, staff training and consultations for such artists and companies as Nina Kraviz, Teslaboy, BlackStar Inc., Yulia Samoilova, Triangle Sun, Therr Maitz, Vlad Topalov, Google, Zvooq, Coub, Zion Records, Mubert, Galernaya20, iMixes, and many others.

He has organized more than 300 foreign artists’ tours in Russia and Russian DJs’ performances in the UK.

Pianist, producer, winner of three Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award

Robert Glasper

Robert Glasper is the idol of the youth and the originator of the trendiest and most vibrant projects in modern jazz, R&B and hip-hop.

At the beginning of the new millennium, Robert Glasper released a number of successful solo albums on the major jazz label Bluenote Records. However, he achived real worldwide fame and won two Grammy Awards with the release of Black Radio (2012) and Black Radio 2 (2014) featuring such superstars as Erykah Badu and Snoop Dogg. Collaborating with hip-hop artists holds a special place in the musician’s work – he played on the most remarkable rap album of the new century, To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar, collaborated as a sound producer with Mos Def and Bilal, and performed with Kanye West and Jay-Z. “Robert Glasper heads down the fraught path of hip-hop jazz and gets it right,” the Rolling Stone review of Black Radio says.

He is also known as a film score composer. Miles Ahead, the 2015 Miles Davis biopic, won Robert Glasper a Grammy. In 2017, he also received an Emmy Award for the track Letter to the Free, co-written with Common, from the soundtrack to 13th (Netflix).

In 2015, Glasper recorded the acoustic album Covered (Bluenote records) with his trio consisting of Vicente Archer (upright bass) and Damion Reid (drums). The album was their first acoustic release in eight years. “I missed the piano,” Glasper said simply, explaining his decision, because for the past five years he had focused almost exclusively on keyboards and electronic sound in his Robert Glasper Experiment project. However, jazz standards are far from being the only tracks on Covered, the tracklist including ingenious instrumental versions of songs by Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, John Legend and Kendrick Lamar, as well as several Glasper’s originals

Head of a concert Agency, founder of the Jazzfuel blog

Matt Fripp

After graduating with a jazz degree from the Guildhall School of Music, Matt Fripp started working as a booking agent and manager, first during 6 years at a London-based agency and then through his own company. During this time he has booked more than 1,000 international gigs for a range of artists.

Alongside his booking & management work, Matt runs the website Jazzfuel.com which shares career advice to jazz musicians around the world, via free articles, guides and industry interviews and also via professional services including press campaigns, consulting and online courses.

Journalist, Editor of Jazz Forum magazine

Marek Romański

Marek studied at the University of Warsaw. Journalist, music critic, since 2000 editor of “Jazz Forum” magazine, author of radio programs. Promoter, host of cultural events, music lover without genre boundaries, record collector.

Journalist, critic, educator, Contributing Writer, DownBeat, JazzTimes

Allen Morrison

Allen Morrison is a music journalist, jazz critic, educator, and musician who has interviewed and profiled many of today’s leading figures in jazz and pop. The list includes Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Jon Batiste, Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, Donald Fagen, Paul Simon, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Gregory Porter, and many others. As a regular contributor to the jazz magazines DownBeat and Jazz Times, he has covered music festivals around the world, including the Newport Jazz Festival, the Toronto Jazz Festival, and the MIMO Festival in Brazil. He has also written about music for The Guardian, Jazziz, Departures, and American Songwriter. Allen’s lectures on jazz history have been featured aboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, as part of the Cunard Insights lecture series, as well as at public libraries and other venues.

Allen combines his musical knowledge with a broad background in writing, public relations and executive communications in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. During his career Allen has been a magazine editor, a music critic, a music publicist for major recording artists, a government spokesman, and a communications director for politicians and major government agencies.

As a music publicist, he has created promotional materials and handled tour press for such major recording artists as The Chieftains, Ry Cooder, Dr. John, Trombone Shorty, Mavis Staples and many others. He has placed articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsday, and other major publications. An accomplished jazz pianist, he has a passion for, and encyclopedic knowledge of, American popular music in all genres — pop, rock, jazz, country, blues, and other roots music.

Founder of the SAMRO Foundation, IKS Cultural Consulting and the Concerts SA project

Andre le Roux

A highly regarded African cultural activist, arts manager/administrator, Andre le Roux was the Managing Director of the Southern African Music Rights Organization (SAMRO). He is the founder of the SAMRO Foundation, IKS Cultural Consulting and the Concerts SA project. He has served on a number of boards on South African arts and culture, as well as across the African diaspora landscape.

Executive Director of the Ural Music Night festival

Natalia Shmelkova

Natalia is Project Manager of New/Open Showcase Festival and Ural Music Camp, coordinator of the Music Industry Committee and Executive Director of the Ural Music Night festival

Co-founder of the communication firm Doing Great Agency

Tanya Panteleyeva

The agency works with festivals STEREOLETO, ALFA FUTURE PEOPLE, Beat Film Festival; concerts of Jennifer Lopez, Boris Grebenshikov, СПЛИН, Монеточка, СБПЧ, IOWA, АИГЕЛ, etc; band releases by TOMM¥ €A$H, АИГЕЛ, НААДЯ, Гречка, КИНО; brands, such as Delivery Club, МЕГА, Yandex.Taxi and many others.

Director of the Jazz Society of Turkey

Tuğçe Alpaslan

Tuğçe Alpaslan has been the Director of the Jazz Society of Turkey since 2014 She seeks to support and promote various international jazz events including the International Ankara Jazz Festival, the Bodrum Jazz Festival, and the Jazz @ Museum. She is a member of Europe Jazz Network and operates cross-border cultural projects under the sponsorship of the European Union.

Tuğçe Alpaslan primarily focuses on managing the budgets, confirming line-ups, programming and popularizing the festivals. She is also a committed advocate of human rights: she promotes gender equality, women’s empowerment, social inclusion, environmental awareness, and explores the festivals’ themes accordingly.

Tuğçe ensures effective cooperation between partners, local authorities, universities, national associations and businesses in Turkey and beyond. She has worked with numerous organizations and institutions, such as the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of Turkey, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the European Union, the United Nations, etc.

Finally, she has established herself as an expert in staff management by embracing positive team working to boost motivation and improve one’s skills and performances.

Dean of Strategic Initiatives for Berklee College of Music , and Executive Director o f
BerkleeNYC

Stephen Webber

Stephen Webberis an Emmy-winning composer, musician, author, speaker, producer/engineer, and a leading innovator in music and the performing arts. Stephen currently serves as Dean of Strategic Initiatives for Berklee College of Music , and Executive Director of BerkleeNYC, where he oversees the iconic Power Station recording studios, hosting sessions for Wynton and Brandford Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding, Jon Batiste, Jacob Collier, and hundreds of other artists. Recently, Stephen has been serving as A&Rconsultant for the Universal Music Group . He’s produced and engineered albums for a wide-range of artists, including a collaboration with DJ Premier and Nas for the Re:Generations Music Project, a film Stephen appeared in alongside Erica Badu, Skrillex, Mos Def, Pretty Lights, and the Doors.

Almost fifty thousand students are enrolled in Stephen’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) The Art of Music Production . In 2014, Webber founded the Music Production, Technology and Innovation Master’s program at Berklee’s Valencia Campus , where he also served as CTO. Music Production Analysis , Webber’s course for Berklee Music Online , won 2010’s international “Best Online Course Award” from the University Continuing Education Association.

Webber is the composer and turntable soloist of the Stylus Symphony , a groundbreaking work that combines a full orchestra with hip-hop, trip-hop and dubstep. Webber authored Turntable Technique: The Art of the DJ, the first book to teach the turntable as a musical instrument, and he founded Berklee’s DJ and turntablism classes, which are considered to be the first to be offered by a college of music.

As a musician, Webber has toured China, Australia, Europe, Central America and the US, and has appeared on CNN, NBC, NPR and CBS, and in the New York Times and Rolling Stone Magazine.

His innovative teaching has helped propel his students to the top of the international music charts-garnering multi-platinum records and Grammy awards in pop, rock, hip-hop, jazz, country, bluegrass, folk, K-Pop, classical and Latin categories.

A multi-instrumentalist who often contributes guitars, keyboards, banjo, mandolin and turntables to his productions, Stephen has recorded with Mark O’Connor, Kathy Mattea and Meshell Ndegeocello, and performed with Bela Fleck, Grandmixer DXT, and Emmylou Harris.

Webber has designed several recording studios, conducted film scores at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Ranch, and authored dozens of articles and cover stories for Mix Magazine, Re-Mix and Electronic Musician.

Singer, Composer, Trombonist, founder of Why DIY Music and Nova Productions

Nani Noam Vazana

Nani Noam Vazana is the world’s first original Ladino artist. For 2020 she is booked to play on major stages: Richmond Folk Festival (USA), Montana Folk Festival (USA), representing Israel at the HUE Festival (Vietnam), Manchester Jazz Festival (UK) & 84 more dates Nani represented the Netherlands at the European Music Festival (Vietnam), performed at the Kennedy Center (USA), Jodhpur RIFF Festival (India), Jazzahead (Germany), North Sea Jazz (the Netherlands), Roccella Jazz (Italy), TEDx (the Netherlands) & hosted 3 WOMEX panels. The Dutch public broadcasting network (NPO) released a mini documentary about her musical work in 2018 Nani also composed music for BBC4 and NPO documentaries. Nani chairs the Amsterdam Artist Collective and is the founder of Why DIY Music and Nova Productions.

Awards:

PAIS Album Award, IL 2020

SENA Album Award, NL 2019

Arts Council England Premiere Award, UK 2019

Sephardic Music Award, ES 2017

iTunes Top-20 bestseller, NL 2015

ACUM Album Award, IL 2014

Director of Amersfoort Jazz Festival, Musician

Alexander Beets

The press wrote he is one of the rare tenor heroes of this time. His nickname ‘The Hurricane’ comes from his explosive and expressive playing. As a jazz-saxophone player, he has given over 2000 concerts around the world and played on more than 30 CD’s and DVD’s. He often performs as a special guest, as well as with his own combo. He is a member of the Round Midnight Orchestra and Saskia Laroo International Band.

Alexander ‘The Hurricane’ Beets presents the ‘Tribute to Stanley Turrentine’ with his quartet and the lady trumpet player Ellister van der Molen. Another project is called ‘Sandborn Sound’ where Alexander performs with his quartet and the alto saxophonist Rolf Delfos, bringing a musical tribute to the still living legend David Sanborn.

He has been the director of the Amersfoort Jazz Festival for 21 years. Amersfoort Jazz is an annual open air jazz festival in the Dutch city of Amersfoort. The festival has eight stages all over the old part of the city of Amersfoort, mainly on the historic squares. It is a large free three-day event, and it attracts over 100,000 visitors every year.

Executive Director of Music Finland

Kaisa Rönkkö

Kaisa has been the Executive Director of Music Finland since June 2018. She has a passion to popularize the power of music and develop the international dialogue  between premium content, innovative technologies and digital services. 

Prior to Music Finland, Kaisa was the head of the Orchestra department at the Finnish National Opera Ballet. She was also the head of the music library and therefore responsible for copyright matters. Kaisa has been Finland’s project manager in large-scale digital opera projects co-funded by Creative Europe Programme. 

Kaisa has also been a senior intendant at the Public Information Division of the Defense Command of Finland, an artist manager and partner at Finland’s largest artist management agency, Fazer Artist Management Inc, and an assistant at the Finnish Cultural Institute in Copenhagen.  

Kaisa is a Master of Music and Master of Arts Management. She studied at the Sibelius Academy, at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, at the University of Turku and at the Helsinki University of Applied Sciences. She also holds a piano diploma and is a qualified piano teacher. 

Kaisa is a board member of NOMEX (Nordic Music Export), Boardman Management Study Group and Finland Promotion Board, coordinated by the Foreign Ministry of Finland. 

SAXOPHONIST, PRODUCER, PEOPLE’S ARTIST OF RUSSIA,
PRESIDENT OF IGOR BUTMAN MUSIC GROUP,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MOSCOW JAZZ ORCHESTRA,
PRESIDENT OF JAB FORUM&FESTIVAL

IGOR BUTMAN

Igor Butman is justly considered as the top advocate of Russian jazz art in the world. In 1999 he founded his internationally acclaimed Igor Butman Orchestra (now — Moscow Jazz Orchestra),  Quartet and Quintet, described by DownBeat Magazine as «an outfit of virtuosos». In past 20 years Igor Butman along with his bands toured dozens of countries and performed at the world’s biggest festivals.

Igor Butman released 17 albums both as a leader and co-leader, including Magic Land (Sony Classical) featuring Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, John Patitucci, Stefon Harris and Randy Brecker. 

Igor Butman Music Group, led by Mr Butman, consists of the Igor Butman Jazz Club in Moscow, the Butman Music Records and the biggest Russian jazz concert agency IBMG, which runs 12 jazz festivals in Russia and represents the finest Russian artists abroad.

In 2016 Igor Butman was elected the President of the Russian Authors’ Society (Russian equivalent of ASCAP). In 2018 he became the initiator and co-artistic director (along with Herbie Hancock) of the International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Since 2019 Mr Butman has been the head of the first Jazz Academy in thehistory of Russia.

Head of international projects department at Igor Butman Music Group, executive producer of JAB forum&festival Russian and VII International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg

ROMAN KHRISTYUK

Gnesin Academy of Music and Moscow State Academy of Law alumnus Roman Khristyuk started working with Igor Butman in 2005 as PR manager of Le Club (now Igor Butman Club). In 2006-2008 he collaborated with the Independent newspaper in Moscow as a concert observer. Now Roman is the executive producer of the Jazz Across Borders forum&festival and the head of international projects at Igor Butman Music Group, adding to it he’s working on worldwide tours for Igor Butman and Moscow Jazz Orchestra. Among IBMG’s international projects are Sochi Jazz Festival (Sochi), Triumph of Jazz (Moscow and St. Petersburg), Jazz Seasons at Gorky Leninsky (Moscow region), Future of Jazz (Moscow), Sakhalin-Hokkaido Jazz (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sapporo), World Jazz Festival (Riga) and Skolkovo Jazz Festival (Skolkovo Innovation Center). Roman Khristyuk teaches PR and concert management at Music Management Faculty of Russian Gnesin Academy of Music. In 2018, as an executive producer, he led the working groupon the preparation and holding of the VII International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Program Director of Jazz Across Borders

Dina Nurgaleeva

In 2010 she graduated from the State University of Management with a degree inManagement in cinema and TV. In 2013, she received her PhD in Economics. She worked indifferent fields such as film-making (projects of director Ilya Khotinenko), television (RussiaToday channel) and tourism (the Ritz Carlton hotel).Dina started her business career in music as the manager of Jazz Dance Orchestra. In 2016,she founded Magnetophone Music Agency. Co-producer of the annual open air festival Cityof Jazz at Aptekarsky Garden of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University.Programm Director of Jazz Across Borders forum & festival within St. PetersburgInternational Cultural Forum. Programm Director of International Jazz Day in St. Petersburgin 2018

Editor-in-chief of Jazz.ru

Kirill MOSHKOW

His career in music journalism started in early 1990s, he broadcasted as DJ and special shows on-air host on several radio stations in Moscow, wrote about music for magazines and newspapers, provided copy and voice-over for TV shows about music, and edited jazz news for a news agency. In 1998, he was invited to Russia’s newborn Jazz Web outlet, Jazz.Ru, as managing editor; since 2006, he is also the publisher at Jazz.Ru Magazine.

He contributed for several jazz magazines in the U.S. and in Europe (DownBeat, AllAboutJazz.Com, Jazz Forum, Jazz.Pt, Jazzthetik etc.) Since 2014, he is a board member at the Russian Jazz research center in Yaroslavl. He also serves as coordinator of Europe Jazz Media, the ring of European jazz magazines.

Moshkow wrote several books in Russian on jazz and African American music, most notably Jazz Industry in America and The Blues, Introduction to the History. He also authored chapters on the history of jazz in Russia for Pearson’s Discover Jazz (2011) and for The History of European Jazz The Music (2017).

Project manager of I-Jazz

Enrico Bettinello

Enrico Bettinello is a music and performing arts curator, writer and cultural manager based in Venezia (Italy). He is a member of the Board of Directors of Europe Jazz Network and project manager for I-Jazz, the association of Jazz Festivals in Italy.

As a curator, he collaborates with NovaraJazz (managing residencies and multi-disciplinary projects), Pro-Helvetia (as creator and artistic director of New Echoes series of concerts) , Palazzo Grassi/Punta della Dogana Museum, Venice Biennale and many more.

Enrico Bettinello is currently directing the European Institute of Design in Venice. 

Founder of Jazz Fest Sarajevo, co-curator of Ljubljana Jazz Festival

Edin Zubcevic

Business Magazine named him Art Manager of the year in 2000. He is the founder of Jazz Fest Sarajevo, international music festival. As founder and producer of label and agency Gramofon, he organized hundreds music and other events from chamber music concerts to big arena pop-rock shows and corporate events. Since 2001 he published and produced over 40 CDs, DVDs, and books, most of them released for Gramofon (founded 2003). In 2009 he started regional music event Xenophonia, and in 2012 regional educational program Music Meeting.

From 2001 until 2006 he was a jury member of the European Jazz Prize. From 2003 until 2008 he was a member of Board of directors of Open Society Fund Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was a guest lecturer at the Academy of Music in Sarajevo from 2014. Since 1987 he has been writing comments, reviews and essays about music in daily newspaper and magazines, as well as hosted hundreds of shows on various national and independent radio stations. He is also working as a freelance PR consultant (since 2000), artist manager (since 2000) and freelance writer for international magazines (since 2012). Since 2018 co-curator of Ljubljana Jazz Festival and editor-in-chief of NOMAD web portal.

Coordinator/administrator of Europe Jazz Network

Francesca Cerretani

Francesca Cerretani is in charge of managing the EJN virtual office; working with EJN project leaders on the activities’ administration, coordination and production; Board administration; assisting the Network Manager in the preparation of grant applications. From 2001 to 2013 Francesca was organising theatre and music events in Italy and worldwide. 

Programm Director of Casa da Música

Fernando de Sousa

Fernando de Sousa began his activity in 1997 as an independent promoter. Since this year, he was involved on the organization and production of various cultural events and music festivals in Portugal, African Portuguese spoken countries and Brazil. Fernando has been invited to give conferences and participate at various panels around the world on music subjects mainly focused on lusophonie and brazilian music in Europe. 

From 2004, is in charge of the programming of pop-rock, jazz and world music at Casa da Música Foundation where he currently continues to exercise these competences. The concept behind Casa da Música is promoting high quality performances of several genres of music, including classical and contemporary music since there are four resident groups under its direction (a symphonic orchestra, a baroque orchestra and an ensemble for contemporary music apart of two choirs).

Musician, the Head of the Arkhangelsk-JAZZ production center

Tim Dorofeev

Tim Dorofeev has organized more than twenty festivals including The International Jazz Days in Arkhangelsk, Arkhangelsk-Blues, Jazz Workshop project and club. He is a band leader of the Art Quartet, which won the Quartets 4×4 television contest on the Culture channel in 2018. The band members of the Art Quartet have been playing together for more than 15 years having created their own unique and distinctive style over that time. The musical repertoire combines contemporary jazz, Russian folklore and Tim’s own music. The ensemble programme features famous Russian and foreign jazz musicians, folk bands and choirs, as well as contemporary dance and video art. The quartet worked with numerous world famous jazz musicians as partners: Anatoly Vapirov – sax (Bulgaria), Mike del Ferro – piano (Netherlands), Vladimir Tarasov – drums (Lithuania), Umezu Khojitoki – sax (Japan) and others.

Reykjavik Jazz Festival

Sunna Gunnlaugs

Sunna Gunnlaugs is a pianist and co-director of the Reykjavik Jazz Festival in Iceland since 2015. She is also on the board of EJN since 2018. Sunna organizes two concert series – “Freyjujazz" at the National Gallery of Iceland which is focused on creating opportunities for women in jazz, and "Jazz in Salurinn” at Salurinn in Kopavogur, where she invites international artists to perform acoustic solo concerts.

Communication Manager of Europe Jazz Network

Stefano Zucchiatti

Stefano Zucchiatti is the Communication Manager of Europe Jazz Network. He has a substantial experience in communication at the international level for non-profit organisations and networks. His main areas of expertise are brand management, digital communications and social media, events management and press relations. He studied Communication Sciences at the Padova University and has a Master in Communication for International Relations at IULM University in Milan.

Jazz saxophonist, founder of Szczecin Jazz Festival.

Sylwester Ostrowski

A graduate of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland, Sylwester Ostrowski became the leading force in the founding of the Szczecin Academy of Art. As a music producer, he became the cultural advisor of to the mayor and City Hall in Szczecin. His break came when he was producing music for Piotr Wojtasik, who offered him a recording session with top American musicians including Newman T. Baker, Wayne Dockery, and Reggie Moore.

Sylwester Ostrowski is a rare case in the Polish artistic world. He successfully combines the role of music — jazz saxophonist with culture animation, including the creation of the Szczecin Jazz Festival. He has recorded with American jazz vocalist Deborah Brown and toured alongside genres like Bobby Watson, Wynton Marsalis and Keyon Harrold. 

Sylwester builds cultural connections globally with jazz. 

To date, he has three albums; the latest being In Our Own Way, where he takes on cultural exchange, bringing a fusion of American and Polish jazz, the classical music of Frederic Chopin, and traditional music of Poland and Japan. Sylwester was recently awarded the title of Honorary Ambassador of Szczecin City.

Head of event-agency Mood Engineer, executive producer.

Sergey Lopatin

Sergey Lopatin has been working in the event industry since 2000.

He founded the agency “Mood Engineer”, there are some privilege clients such as: Sberbank, PIRELLI, Volvo, Hyundai and others. Agency has successfully held events in Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Scotland and Monaco, established the partnership with European event agencies. The Mood Engineer Agency also organizes events for the Ministry of Culture and the Government of St. Petersburg.

Trumpeter, pianist, musical director of XJAZZ Festival

Sebastian Studnitzky

The trumpeter and pianist STUDNITZKY has always been a traveller between the realms of jazz, classical and electronic music. He travelled the world as member of Mezzoforte, Nils Landgren Funk Unit, Jazzanova, Dominic Miller, Wolfgang Haffner and many others.

Since 2015 he has been concentrating on his own projects – the jazz/electronic band KY, his orchestra project MEMENTO and solo shows as well. 

In 2012 he founded Contemplate music, his own record label. In 2014 he initiated the XJAZZ Festival Berlin and took charge as its musical director. It immediately became Berlin’s largest jazz festival (90 concerts in 4 days in 11 venues, reaching 21.000 people) and launched international editions as well (Reykjavik, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Minsk). In 2019 XJAZZ also launched an own label and a streaming app.

Since 2014 Sebastian Studnitzky has been a professor for Jazz trumpet at the Dresden University of Music and since 2017 at Jazz Institute Berlin as well

CEO of Jazz Do It Music agency and JDI Multimedia, co-producer of the ZAVTRA festival, the project Classics in the Dark

Robert Bagdasarov

Robert has been a head of marketing and producer at the Russian office of One-Go-Events (the Netherlands), actively engaged in the family entertainment area (Disney Live!, Genius DaVinci, Sharks, Human Body). 

In 2009, he started a production company Jazz Do It Music Agency. The agency organizes concerts, festivals, among its brightest projects are: ZAVTRA festival  (Moscow and St. Petersburg), Skypark Live! Festival (Sochi), ZAZ tours, concerts of Duke Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie Orchestra, Marcus Miller, George Benson, Brand New Heavies, Al Jarreau, Yiruma, Stanley Clarke, Richard Bona, Richard Galliano, Incognito, Jazzanova feat. Paul Randolph, Yamato, Chucho Valdes and others. Since 2017 Robert has been devekoping Jazz Do It Multimedia studio – studio specializing in realtime graphics, video content creation and interactive installations.

Deputy director of the Jazz Academy, trombonist, conductor, composer and arranger

Pavel Ovchinnikov

Pavel collaborated with the jazz orchestras of Kim Nazaretov, Georgy Garanyan, Sergey Zhilin and Berlin International Orchestra.  Since 2004 Pavel has been playing at the Moscow Jazz Orchestra conducted by Igor Butman. 

Since 2014, Pavel Ovchinnikov has been leading the orchestra class and teaching jazz trombone at the Department of Jazz & Pop Music at the Maimonides State Classical Academy.  In 2017-2019 he occupied a position of the deputy director of the State College of Brass Art, now Pavel is the first deputy director of the Jazz Academy.

Pavel is the artistic director of the Jazz Triumph for Kids international jazz festival & competition and the musical director of the The Future of Jazz international festival. 

Pavel’s arrangements and musical pieces are performed by many famous musicians both in Russia and abroad.

Jazz vocalist, director of Art Of Jazz Company, director of international jazz festivals

Olga Skepner

Olga Skepner is a founder and music director of the International Festival of Improvisational Music «Jazz in the Kremlin with Olga Skepner» (Kazan, Tatarstan), the International Music Festival Hόtel de ville (Kazan, Tatarstan) and the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Brunswick Diagonals” (Germany-Russia).

In 2006, she founded the production center «Art of Jazz Company», which promotes modern improvisational and jazz music, the genres of ethno jazz and world music. In 2010, she became an organizer of the Days of French Culture in Kazan, as part of which the Jazz music festival «Le Jazz» was held in Kazan. In 2011, she was a director of the State Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan at the Tuqay Tatar State Philharmonia.

Since 2013, as a singer, she has been cooperating with jazz pianist and composer Andrei Rudenko. In the same year she founded a group, which included famous Russian jazz musicians. Director of famous Russian pianist and composer Evgeny Borets and “Evgeny Borets Trio”.

Director and founder of The International Boutique Festival CHESS & JAZZ, program director of The Bosco Fresh Fest, CEO of I’M IN booking agency

Nick Babin

Nick is a graduate of musical management faculty of Gnessin Russian Academy of Music.  He has been a program director of the Bosco Fresh Fest since 2012. Nik founded the CHESS & JAZZ festival in 2018, which is held with a great success in Moscow, Singapore and Almaty. Nick has organized concerts for such artists as Gregory Porter, Gogo Penguin, Cory Henry & Funk Apostles, James Blake, John Newman, Ceelo Green, Roisin Murphy.

Musicologist at Chelyabinsk State Philharmonic, journalist, concert host

Natalya Rikker

Natalya is the initiator and scriptwriter for a wide range of theatrical shows by Igor Burko’s Ural Dixieland. As a part of it she participated in jazz festivals in Russia and abroad and has been the ensemble’s director since 2016. Natalya is an artistic director and host of the Spring beat international jazz festival, and artistic director and host of What A Wonderful World international jazz festival. Ms Rikker is the author of different broadcasts at Chelyabinsk radio stations, including Jazz Time weekly program aired from 2003 to 2007. She worked as well for the Culture News project at South Ural State Television and Radio Company. Ms Rikker has published a dozen of articles devoted to Chelyabinsk musical life. She teaches the history of pop music styles at  South Ural State Institute of Arts P.I. Tchaikovsky.

Pianist, Research Committee Chair at Jazz Education Network

Monika Herzig

Monika Herzig is a faculty member in Arts Administration of Indiana University, head of the research committee for the Jazz Education Network and editor of JAZZ (Jazz Education in Research and Practice, IU Press). Her book David Baker – A Legacy in Music was released on November 2011 on IU Press, and Experiencing Chick Corea: A Listener’s Companion on

Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. She has released more than a dozen CDs under her leadership on her own ACME Records as well as Owl Studios and Whaling City Sounds. Her awards include a 1994 Down Beat Magazine Award for Best Original Song, a Jazz Journalist Association Hero 2015 award, as well as grants from the NEA, the Indiana Arts Commission, MEIEA, among others. Her newest project “SHEROES” was cited as one of the best releases of 2018 in DownBeat Magazine, placing #31 on the year-end Jazz Week Charts.

Founder and art director of the Moscow International Jazz Festival in the Hermitage Garden

Michael Green

Michael Green is a journalist, producer, one of the catalysts of jazz life in Moscow, founder and permanent art director of the Moscow International Festival Jazz in the Hermitage Garden. 

In 1997, together with Alex Rostotsky, he launched his first jazz club Birdland, where almost all Moscow jazz musicians performed afterwards. That’s where he found like-minded musicians who he started to work with as a producer. 

He released CDs Black Coffee and My Favorite Songs  (by Anna Buturlina, 2002 and 2006), Get Happy (by Vladimir Danilin, 2006), All Right, OK, You Win (by Anna Koroleva, 2006), Black and White (by German Lukyanov, 2008) and two live CDs recorded at the 5th and 6th editions of the Jazz in the Hermitage Garden (2003, 2004). He was a artistic director and a member of the board of Moscow Jazz Engagement from 2003 to 2006. Along with the Cervantes Institute in Moscow, he held the First Russian-Spanish Jazz Festival in 2004. He hosted his own programs of Latin American music under a nick name Don Miguel at various Moscow radio stations from 1992 to 2017. Michael is one of the authors and editors of  two memoir collections of jazz veterans, published under the name HERMITAGE Almanac in 2018 and 2019.

Executive director of Tampere Music Festivals

Minnakaisa Kuivalainen

Minnakaisa Kuivalainen, former Vice-President of Finland Festivals and Pirkanmaa Regional Fund, now is the executive director of Tampere Music Festivals, an organisation which holds three festivals in Finland: Tampere Jazz Happening, Tampere Biennale and Tampere Vocal Music Festival. She was elected to the Board of Directors of European Jazz Network in 2017.

Programming director of Katowice JazzArt Festival

Martyna Markowska

Since 2013, Martyna Markowska has been the head of programming of the Institution of Culture Katowice City of Gardens, where she programmes the Katowice JazzArt Festival and the world music festival Gardens of Sounds.  In addition to writing for numerous publications dedicated to interdisciplinary forms of art, she specialises in curating interdisciplinary and social projects within the programme of Katowice — UNESCO Creative City of Music such as Polish aspect of Czech Music Crossroads in Ostrava. She was a member of the team that organised WOMEX 2017 in Katowice, and is a current board member of Europe Jazz Network. In 2019 she became a part of the programme committee for European Jazz Conference in Novara in September 2019.

Founder of Arts & Parts Ltd

Martel Ollerenshaw

Based in London and working internationally, Martel Ollerenshaw is an international arts broker and creative producer. With a wide portfolio of skills and interests, she works actively with artists, organisations and festivals to create and produce work that is pioneering and often genre blurring. Between 2002 and 2017, she worked at Serious International Music Producers/EFG London Jazz Festival, where her portfolio included Seriously Talented, the acclaimed suite of talent development programmes (i.e., Take Five, Take Five Europe and Air Time) for professional musicians working in jazz and improvised music, and now leads her own company Arts & Parts Ltd, which is a flexible vehicle to create and produce performing arts projects of all kinds, with a particular emphasis on music and interdisciplinary work. Martel is the Chair of Pacitti Company/SPILL Festival, the vice president of the Europe Jazz Network, a board member of the Australian Music Centre, and hcmf// (Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival).

Deputy director, artistic director of the Udmurt State Philharmonic Society

Maria Vidmak

Maria graduated from the musical and pedagogical department of VG Korolenko Glazov State Pedagogical Institute (piano and concertmaster class) in 2006. In 2011-2017 she was a program manager of the concert repertoire at Udmurt State Philharmonia. Maria has been a deputy director and artistic director of the Udmurt State Philharmonic Society since 2017. 

Alongside with professional duties Maria takes part in scientific researches in the field of classical music management.

Ms Vidmak held the following projects: IzhJazzFest, Literary Festival: In the Homeland of P. I. Tchaikovsky, Online Art Contest In the Homeland of P. I. Tchaikovsky (2016), a joint project with the New Names Foundation (more than 1000 Udmurt young musicians as participants); Music Summer Festival (which was attended by more than 10,000 residents of Udmurtia).

Production manager of JazzLab

Lobke Aelbrecht

Lobke Aelbrecht, a member of the Board of Directors of Europe Jazz Network, works as an artistic production manager at JazzLab, a concert organisation platform based in Ghent, Belgium. By building long-term partnerships with venues and setting up collaborations with other organisations, JazzLab allows Belgian jazz musicians to tour in decent venues all over the country and also abroad. 

Even though her education and the first ten years of her professional career were in academia, in the linguistic department of universities in Ghent and Brussels, Lobke has always embraced the music scene. A few years ago she made a clear switch away from academia and into the cultural sector, with her job at Flanders Arts Institute, a research and support center for the performing arts, music and fine arts in Flanders and Brussels, funded by the Flemish government. Lobke was the representative for jazz, folk and world music. 

Publicist, concert promoter, radio host, owner of Lydia Liebman Promotions

Lydia Liebman

Lydia Liebman founded boutique jazz public relations firm Lydia Liebman Promotions in 2010. Liebman started by promoting local shows at Scullers Jazz Club, Berklee’s Café 939 and Wally’s Jazz Café. Her first account was Danilo Perez’s Berklee Global Jazz Institute. Since then, LLP has grown to become one of the most active and soughе after PR firms in jazz today. LLP’s impressive roster includes artists from all spectrums of jazz including Wallace Roney, Ralph Peterson, Catherine Russell, Brandee Younger and many more.

She spearheaded the Grammy campaigns for the Baylor Project (whose independent album The Journey went on to gain two nominations in 2017) and Spanish Harlem Orchestra’s Anniversary, winner of Best Tropical Latin Album in 2018.  She has promoted concerts at storied venues like Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, The Kennedy Center and Berklee Performance Center, along with most major jazz clubs in the United States. 

She is a member of The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences’ (NARAS), an associate member of the Jazz Journalists Association and has served on the Board of Directors of JazzBoston.

Artistic director of Porgy & Bess, Vienna

Christoph Huber

Born 1968 in Baden, Switzerland. Graduated from the University of Vienna in 1993 with a degree in sports management. In 1991-1998 Cristoph was the co-organiser (together with Gerhard Eder) of the International Jazzfestival Saalfelden, in 1993 he held the Symposium “The Situation of the Contemporary Music on the example of Jazz” in Saalfelden. In 1993-2000 he served as the artistic & organizational director (together with Mathias Rüegg, Renald Deppe and Gabriele Mazic) of Jazz & Musicclub Porgy & Bess in Vienna, and in 2000 he became the director of the “new” Porgy & Bess in the rooms of the legendary Rondell-Kino in the center of Vienna. Among his other accomplishments are holding Good News from Russia festival in Vienna (1999), creating a concept of Grabenfesttage (together with Christoph Cech) and a jazzclub at the Kunsthalle Wien in the Museumsquartier, programming of The Great American Songbook series at Amerika exhibition at the Belvedere museum in Vienna (1999), holding the 30A series at  Radiokulturhaus (1999-2000).

Jazz singer and composer.

Kristina Kovalyova

Kristina Kovalyova is a jazz singer and composer, musician with a unique sense of style and creative freedom, a vibrant tone and charming charisma. She took part in The Voice of Ukraine TV contest, International Jazz Day 2018 (St. Petersburg) and Rigas Ritmi Festival 2019 (Latvia), where she was awarded with the First prize and Raimond Pauls’ special prize.

Kristina has been frequently touring Russia and other countries with Russian musicians and NY pianist Jon Davis. Deeply influenced by Ukrainian music and culture, she combines jazz and Ukrainian folk music. Kristina released her debut album Hristya v Namysti featuring outstanding St. Petersburg musicians in June 2019.

Radario Marketing Director

Kirill Malyshev

Kirill graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Dostoevsky Omsk State University. Prior to starting his career in PR, he worked for more than 5 years as a mass media journalist in morning news on radio, news agencies and glossy magazines in Omsk. Kirill has been working in marketing and external communications services, telecommunication and IT companies in St. Petersburg (ER-Telecom, Peter-Service) since 2011. He has been developing the marketing and PR department of Radario, a company which elaborates cloud solutions for sales, marketing and audience reach automatization in the entertainment industry. Kirill is the organizer of Cultural Marketing educational project and conference for experts in the cultural and entertainment industry to raise issues on modern marketing and PR tools in the event industry.

Development and promotion director of The JIVE Group Production Center, producer and manager of The Kazan LIVE International Festival of Contemporary Culture

Inna Gorodetskaya

Inna is a professional social psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences, PhD, associate professor, educator, author of more than 130 academic articles and non-fiction stories.

She is carrying out in psychological studies of creative people, cross-cultural processes, motivation and communication. She gives lectures at universities of Russia in Russian and English.

Since 2008 Inna has been leading the development and promotion projects at the JIVE Group Production Center, and has been driving the cultural and youth event concepts.

Head of Light Music company, festival producer

Ilya Bortnуuk

Ilya Bortnyuk has been in the music industry since 1990. Ilya is currently the general producer of Stereoleto and Parts of World (Chasti Sveta) festivals, artistic director of Morze musical club & festival, head of a music label and director of a Russian major record company. In 2001, Ilya founded Light Music company, which has become one of the main independent promoting companies in Russia. 

Creative music and educational project’s manager at CASIO

Ivan Parshentsev

Ivan graduated from the Pop/Jazz Voice Department of Moscow State Pedagogical University. He organizes academic and jazz piano concerts, educational events and supervises collaborations with festivals at CASIO. Among the projects he worked on are Generation NEXT, Territory of Success, DrumsFest Russia 2019, SONGWRITING WEEK`19, literary festival ALOUD, LRK Trio band concerts, the Turn Over Play project by Dmitry Malikov, Moscow Seasons, Jazz Moscow at the Gilyarovsky Center, Opera in the Travel Palace.

Non Cadenza and SPb Jazz Septetus bandleader, pianist, composer, arranger

Evgeny Ponomarev

Evgeny graduated from St. Petersburg Mussorgsky College of Music in 2002 and Saint Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts in 2007. He taught musical arrangements in Mussorgsky College of Music from 2006 to 2008 and worked as a musical director of the Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd over more than 6 years. In 2017, he presented his author’s program for the quartet featuring A. Polovko, G. Voskoboinik and P. Mikheev. 

In the two years of the quartet’s history the musicians played concerts at large venues in St. Petersburg, including The Small Hall of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia and the New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theatre, the best jazz clubs in Moscow (Igor Butman Club, Alexey Kozlov Club, Esse jazz clubs), tooked part in The Jazz Across Borders forum & festival and The International Jazz Day, performed at numerous festivals – Brodsky DRIVE, Rainy Days Jazz Fest and released their debut album NN Song.

Program Director of JAZZ 89.1 FM Radio

Dmitry Khohlov

In 1989, Dmitry started his career in TV and radio as a sound man at the airing department of the television program South of Russia in Volgograd. Then he became the editor-in-chief of the Music Program Department. He set up along with partners the New Wave radio station in Volgograd in 1994 and started local broadcasting for Russkoe Radio, AvtoRadio, worked with Echo of Moscow, Silver Rain, Radio Shanson and other radio stations. He worked as the CEO of Russkoe Radio in Volgograd and the producer of the New Wave Media Group. In 2004 he got a rank of the Honored Signalman of Russia. He organized city days, destivals, concerts, various events. Dmitry was appointed the Program Director of the Radio JAZZ 89.1 FM by Multimedia Holding in 2019.

People’s Artist of Russia, multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, artistic director and founder of the Jazz Philharmonic.

David Goloshyokin

David Goloshyokin’s career in jazz spans for more than 45 years! He is one of the most authoritative and popular musicians of our country, recognized all over the world. His passion for jazz started when he was 15 years old, and a turning point in has carreer became his tenure at the famous orchestra of Joseph Weinstein. Since 1968, David Goloshchekin has been the leader of the legendary Ensemble of Jazz Music, a band with a large international touring geography.

In 1989, with assistance of Valentina Matvienko, David Goloshyokin launched the Philharmonia of jazz music. Today the Philharmonia is one of top notch jazz clubs in the world.  For last 16 years David has been the music director and founders of The Swing of the White Night Jazz Festival. He’s the host and author of numerous series of jazz programs at St. Petersburg and Russian television and radio.

Soviet and Russian musician and musicologist, jazz expert

Vladimir Feiertag

Alumnus of Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music and Leningradsky University, Vladimir became famous in his student years, leading a jazz orchestra, arranging music and promoting jazz. In 1960 along with Valery Mysovsky he published the first book about jazz in Russian, in 1966 he became a lecturer of Lenconcert state agency. He orgazined the first ever jazz series of concerts not only at the concert halls of Leningrad, but at the Philharmonic Halls of many cities of the Soviet Union as well. In the 1990s he lectured abroad (USA, Germany, Denmark, Austria), and became a successful music manager — he toured Europe with many Russian and Ukrainian bands and Russia — with internationally acclaimed artists including Count Basie orchestra, John McLaughlin trio, Dave Brubeck quartet, etc. Vladimir is the author of 10 books about jazz, including first encyclopedias about jazz, he contributed more than 100 articles to major jazz magazines throughout the world.

Founder and producer of The International Blues Festival Bridges

Vladimir Rusinov

In 2003, Vladimit started a band called The Jumping Cats, which recorded several albums, successfully performed in Russia, Europe and even in Kathmandu. 

Vladimir started his activities as a promoter in 2010, building tours for American and European blues artists.  Many blues artists have been on tour in Europe and Russia over the past 10 years at his invitation: Bob Margolin, John Nemeth, Kirk Fletcher, Ina Forsman, JW Jones, Aki Kumar, Johnny Burgin, Ina Forsman, Laura Chavez and others. In 2018, Vladimir founded Bridges Festival, its participants have included winners of Blues Music Awards.

Head of JIVE Group production center, general producer and organizer of Kazan LIVE, pianist, composer

Valery Korotkov

Valery Korotkov is a Laureate of International Contests and Festivals, bandleader, arranger and pianist of JIVE, one of the oldest jazz bands of Tatarstan, as well as indie Tatar music groups A-BAND and New Моң. Adding to it he has worked as a pianist and concertmeister of the rhythm section in jazz orchestras in Russia, the USA and Israel since 1993.

Adding to being busy as a musician, Mr Korotkov is the general producer and organizer of International Festival of Contemporary Culture Kazan LIVE (ex-Kremlin LIVE). Valery was awarded the Russian President Medal for organizing the cultural program of the World Summer Universiade in Kazan.

Independent organizer and programmer

Arlette Hovinga

Arlette Hovinga has been roaming the international jazz scene for a number of years. First as a PA to Motown legends like The Four Tops on their EU tours and working alongside stars like Jeff Goldblum and Mary Wilson. Later she became involved in the organizing of multiple jazz events in The Netherlands such as Jazzfestival Delft, North Sea Round Town and Jazz in de Gracht.

Bassist for the jazz band LRK Trio

Anton Revnyuk

He studied under the prominent bass player Anatoly Sobolev, performed in New York with saxophonist Anatoly Gerasimov and with the Igor Bril ensemble at the Montreal Jazz Festival in Canada.  In the early 2000s as part of the Yakov Okun trio, he worked with many American artists on the Russian stage: saxophonists Donny Maccaslin, Craig Handy, Johnny Griffin, trumpet player Alexander Sipyagin and others

Head of Creative Projects and Product Integrations at OK, Mail.ru Group

Anton Danilov

In 2008, Anton became a co-founder of the startup be-in.ru, where he was in charge of the St. Petersburg’s media development in Moscow and Russian regions, and ran the department of commerce and special projects from 2008 to 2016. 

He launched a series of Susanin local guide travel guides. Travel books on some popular cities sponsored by tourism committees and companies are published every year.  In 2016, he joined the business development team of the OK social network (part of the Mail.ru Group holding), where he started working on creative projects in the fields of culture and lifestyle. Currently, Anton is head of creative projects and product integration at OK, Mail.ru group. In 2018, he came up with and set up the project We are off to the museum whereby virtual exhibitions were launched together with the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Russian Museum and others. There were five museums exhibition called Flemish Masters in the northern region of Belgium  in 2019. Anton has become a producer of the OK Live bands young musicians contest since 2019.

MARCUS STAGE Concert Agency Managing Partner

Anna Bersudskaya

Anna Bersudskaya has worked as a top manager of system integration, production and high-tech equipment sales, promotion and advertising industries more than 15 years.

Over the past few years, she became deeply involved in the restaurant business. And she is currently a start up, restaurant projects development and promotion consultant.

Anna along with her associates founded the MARCUS STAGE concert agency in 2018. Today, MARCUS STAGE agency manages, promotes and  launches PR campaigns for concerts and other music events. The Agency is the official PR partner of the New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theater, and works with most popular jazz and classical musicians.

Producer and Events Organizer of business and creative projects

Andrey Soldatkin

In 2000, Andrey Soldatkin created the RUCEA group of companies which started to be involved in the management of foreign and Russian artists and the organization of events in Russia and around the world. For 18 years, the company has organized more than 1,500 various events and performances of the artists including David Guetta, Craig David, Roisin Murphy, De Phazz, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Paul Oakenfold, Tito & Tarantulla and many others.

Andrey held his own events for thousands of people in partnership with the Moscow Gaudi Arena, participated in organizing youth festivals “Godskitchen” for the British promotional company Angel Music Group. He participated in organizing press-junket tours of Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, James Cameron and many other Hollywood stars in Moscow. Andrey is the concert organizer of Anton Rumyantsev, Anna Buturlina, Daniil Kramer and other Russian artists, the General Producer and the creator of the scientific and educational festival “Pulkovsky Meridian”.

Event director, project manager at the event-agency Guild of Masters

Anastasia Larina

Anastasia graduated from the faculty of theatrical and traditional forms of activity of Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Culture with a major in directing in 2002. She has been the director and project manager at the full-service event agency Guild of Masters since 2005.

Over the years, she created and organized many projects of different types and scales: from official and private to city events, from private parties to multi-thousand festivals. Above this, Anastasia works with other agencies as a project manager in different cities of Russia. She has been a drama teacher at the Young Spectator’s Theatre since 2008. In 2014, Anastasia graduated from the School of Business Trainers, and became a certified business coach major in the development of creative thinking.

Lawyer, CEO of iPpro legal company

Alexander Leonov

Alexander is a Patent Attorney, Eurasian Patent Attorney, member of the International Trademark Association (INTA), and the CEO of iPpro legal company. iPpro company collaborates on copyright issues with famous music groups and artists: Kylie Minogue, Therr Maitz, Alexey Kozlov Club, Music Parking, InSimple and others. iPpro company collaborates with famous music groups and artists on copyright matters: Kylie Minogue, Therr Maitz, Alexey Kozlov Club, Music Parking, InSimple and others. Concurrently with the above-mentioned activities, Mr Leonov worked as a senior lecturer in economic law at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics from 2006 to 2014. 

Artistic Director of the Koktebel Jazz Party International Festival

Mikhail Ikonnikov

Mikhail Ikonnikov has been working on radio since 1989. He is one of the founders of Radio 101, radio host, author and presenter of the program “Jazz. Private collection”. In 1998, he won the Popov Prize in the nomination “Specialized Program” for the program “Jazz. Private collection”.

He worked on Radio ROKS, Radio Prestige, Radio NSN, Radio 1 and Radio Mayak. Since 2014, she has been working as an author and host of a music section on Radio Sputnik in Crimea and Music Director of Radio RT in Sochi. Since August 2018, he has held the position of the program director of Radio Jazz.

 Since 2014 – Art Director of the Koktebel Jazz Paty International Festival in Crimea.

Owner and CEO of Justjazz agency

Catherine Mayer

Catherine Mayer has been in the business all of her life. Born into a family of Jazz lovers, her dad, Gerd Mayer, was a pioneer in the German Jazz Scene after World War 2. Her father made a business out of his passion and founded Konzertdirektion Gerd Mayer/Just Jazz Int officially in 1960. He brought mainly US artists into the Post War Europe. In her childhood, Catherine had the honor to meet a lot of the greats in Jazz as Ella Fitzgerald or Teddy Wilson, Slam Steward, Buddy Tate and many, many more. 

When her father passed about 20 years ago, she took over the family business. Her first tour was with the legendary Illinois Jacquet Big Band. Her company Just Jazz International has grown into one of the finest concert agencies and artist management companies based in Europe, booking tours for Take 6, Bob James, The Manhattan Transfer, Till Bronner, Patti Austin, Ivan Lins and many more internationally acclaimed artists

Jazz drummer, music producer of Rainy Days Records, music director of Rainy Days Jazz Fest

Sasha Mashin

Sasha Mashin is one of the most extraordinary and talented Russian jazz drummers. He was born and began his professional career in Leningrad. In 1991, he joined the legendary Kvadrat jazz club. From 1995 to 1998, Sasha was a regular member of the Igor Butman Quartet. Having moved to Moscow in 1998, he has been constantly collaborating with the best jazz musicians in the country. Also he took the part in the creation of the MocGorTrio band.

In 2005, Sasha went to New York to participate in the Open World Educational Program. Since 2008, he has been actively touring in Russia and Europe with the best Russian and Western musicians. Since 2017, the Yamaha company has been presenting Sasha Mashina as its endorser.

In 2018, Sasha released the debut album “Outsidethebox”, recorded with the participation of Alex Sipyagin and Zhenya Strigalev. The record became one of the most important events of the year in the jazz life of Russia. In the same year, he became the music producer of the Rainy Days Records label and the music director of the Rainy Days Jazz Fest.

Musician, head of jazz department at Musorgsky Music College

Sergey Bogdanov

In 2009 along with Kirill Bubyakin, Sergey put together the Jazz Philarmonic Orchestra featuring artists from the State Philarmonie of Jazz Music. He collaborated with Igor Butman, David Goloshyokin, Valery Ponomarev, Ilya Lushtak, Jean-Loup Longnon, Sharon Clark, Steve Grossman, Jason Brown, Clifford Barbaro and Matts Holmquist, as well as with a famous Russian rock band Aquarium. 

He wrote arrangements for Greg Ruvolo Big Band, Class Center Big Band, JFC Potluck Big Band and Kazan Philarmonie Jazz Orchestra. Since 

2011 he has been the head of jazz studies at the Mussorgsky Music College and the leader of the Mussorgsky Jazz Orchestra. Jazz education section speaker at Jazz Across Borders 2017 and an active participant in events dedicated to the International Jazz Day in St. Petersburg.

Producer and director of the Jazz May Festval, enterpriser

Oleg Rubtsov

In 2010, Oleg Rubtsov decided to return to Penza and open an intellectual literature store called “Vpereplete. Other books” (2010-2015). Among the writers who spoke to the audience of the store, Dmitry Bykov, Irina Khakamada, Vera Polozkova and others. Since 2010, Oleg has been involved in organizing major urban cultural events, including the Humanitarian Forum “Searching for The Province” (2013- 2014), the Ivan Mozzhukhin Film Featival “A Male Role”.

Oleg developed a project of the Penza Book Fair, in 2013-2015, he worked as its producer and director. The fair was held with the support of the Government of the Penza Region (2013) and the Administration of the city of Penza (2014) in the framework of the Humanitarian Forum “Searching for The Province”. In 2015, it gained the status of an autonomous event. In 2012, Oleg joined the organizing committee of the International Jazz May Music Festival, established by the Department of Culture and Archives of the Penza Region. Since 2014, he has been the producer and director of the festival.

Editor-in-Chief, Communication Holding InterMedia.

Evgeniy Safronov

Yevgeny Safronov worked as a consultant and analyst at the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. The Head and a participant of the working groups on cultural research and the preparation of legislation at the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and other organizations. He is the author of more than two hundred analytical publications on organizational and economic issues of the cultural sphere in the leading Russian media, a regular speaker of national and international conferences and educational programs. 

Yevgeny Safronov is the founder and the director of several mass media organizations (the magazine and the news agency «Tourne», the InterMedia news agency, the Russian musical yearbook, the magazine and the television channel 1Rock, etc.).

Executive director, Head of Rainy Days Records

Evgeniy Petrushanskiy

Evgeny Petrushansky is a graduate of the Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics University (St. Petersburg). He has been working as an independent documentary photographer for more than ten years, writing for print and online media abroad and in Russia. For eight years Evgeny has been working as a guide-interpreter with one of the main companies in St. Petersburg which specializes in walking and cycling tours.

In 2017, together with friends and like-minded colleagues, he founded the independent jazz label Rainy Days Records. The main idea of ​​creating the label is to support those who think as modern people, without limiting themselves to certain frames and clichés, and to create comfortable conditions for the development or realization of their musical ideas. An important stage in the development of the label was the release of the debut recording of the Russian drummer Sasha Mashina “Outsidethebox”, as well as the Rainy Days Jazz Fest festival, which was held in St. Petersburg and Moscow in August 2018 and became the harbinger of the music season both for jazz lovers and musicians.

Executive director of Colisium International music convention

Sergey Babich

Since 2006 Sergey Babich has been a member of the management team of PMG Concert agency, specializing in organizing concerts and festivals of rock bands. In 2009-2010 he worked as a producer at Larisa LUSTA company. In 2010 he became the artistic director of Tsarskoye Selo concert hall.

In 2011, Sergei created his own event agency InnerSpace and became the main organizer of the concert and business program of the Moscow musical exhibition NAMM Musikmesse Russia.

Since 2013, he has been the executive director of the first industry project Colisium International music convention, focused on the development of the music and concert industry. Within four years of Colisium’s existence, Sergey held 20 conferences with more than 12,000 delegates from 22 countries and more than 2500 industry experts as speakers.

Pianist, member of the LRK TRIO, member of the Moscow Union of composers

Evgeny Lebedev

A graduate of Berklee College of Music (Boston), winner of the Montreux piano competition(Switzerland), Made in New York Jazz competition (USA), and winner of a special award fromBillboard magazine.

Art director and managing director of Kozlov Club

Araik Akopyan

Araik is producer of BazzDay Ferstival, FuzzionDay Festival, Tilli Milli Jazz Festival and City Jazz Festival, co-founder the Jazzist media blog. He is Art director and managing director of Kozlov Club.

General Manager of Europe Jazz Network

Giambattista Tofoni

Giambattista Tofoni started his career as a musician and switched to the production field in 1985. He organised more than 2000 concerts at the most important Italian festivals (Ravenna, Verona, Mantova, Crossroads, TAM, La Biennale in Venice, etc.). In 2010, he became a Board member of I-Jazz, the Italian Jazz Federation. He is one of the founding members of EJN in 1987 and has been its General Manager since 2010. He is currently responsible for EJN’s vision, strategy and work program; overseeing the work of the staff/ focal points/working groups; representing EJN and its interests; leading on relationships with other European cultural networks and other relevant bodies.

WBGO journalist

Sheila Elaine Anderson

Always interested in jazz, in 1995 Ms. Anderson joined the staff of WBGO, Newark, New Jersey where she hosts Weekend Jazz After Hours and Salon Sessions and Sunday Night Music Mix. She has authored four books: The Quotable Musician: From Bach to Tupac (2003), The Little Red Book of Musicians’ Wisdom (Skyhorse Press, 2012). How to Grow as A Musician: What All Musicians Must Know to Succeed (2005), the second edition is set to publish in November, 2019 As festival producer her work includes curator of the Newark Museum’s Jazz in the Garden Series and a Columbia University Community Scholar, class of 2017. 

Art-director of JAM Club, founder of concert agency Pro Jazz

Anton Raktovich

Since 2016, he has organized more than 3,000 concerts in Andrey Makarevich’s JAM Club. He is one of the founders and the main organizer of the international jazz festival VR JAZZ Fest.

Anton organized jazz concerts of Andrey Makarevich, concerts of the American cellist Ian Maksin, and “no celebrity” sellout concerts in grand halls.

He is the teacher of a joint course by Timepad and Netology “How to Make Money out of Your Event”, the author of the webinars “Promoting Concerts”, a member of the jury of the New Open Showcase festival in Ekaterinburg, member of the jury of the jazz competition-festival Jazz Birds-2020.

Founder and leading expert of music project development agency InSimple, lecturer at RMA business school

ALEXEI NIKOLAEV

He was a music editor on channels Muz TV and NTV+, art director of the clubs Kult and Propaganda, and the director of the copyright department of the Zvooq music service.

He provided recruitment, staff training and consultations for such artists and companies as Nina Kraviz, Teslaboy, BlackStar Inc., Yulia Samoilova, Triangle Sun, Therr Maitz, Vlad Topalov, Google, Zvooq, Coub, Zion Records, Mubert, Galernaya20, iMixes, and many others.

He has organized more than 300 foreign artists’ tours in Russia and Russian DJs’ performances in the UK.

Cofounder and vice-president, L’Équipe Spectra, Festival International de Jazz de Montréal

André Ménard

André Ménard numbers among the most influential figures in the Quebec artistic community, having greatly contributed to the cultural life of Montreal. Working in the domain of live show and concert production since 1975, he founded L’Équipe Spectra with Alain Simard almost 40 years ago and remains vice-president of the company. He is also the cofounder of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and, he oversaw the workings of Montréal venues Le Spectrum and Métropolis (MTELUS) for 25 years as Vice-President and Managing Director of concert halls for L’Équipe Spectra. From 1995 to 2015, he sat on the board of directors of dance company La La La Human Steps and has been a member of the board of the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership since its inception in 2003. Driven by his insatiable cultural curiosity, André Ménard travels to more than 300 artistic events every year throughout the world.

JazzMap.ru Editor and Creative Director

Olga Karpova

Olga Karpova is a graduate of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. In the late 1990s, she worked for the 2nd and 5th TV channel of Russia, then she plunged into web marketing and online journalism. In 2013 she took up a new hobby – JazzMap.ru blog – started photo and video shooting. What was done for a mere pleasure progressed into a huge musical project that now covers jazz events and concerts in both capitals, and shares latest news about the Russian jazz scene. Jazzmap.ru offers big photo reports of concerts and jazz festivals, exclusive videos and interviews. Over time, social communities and Youtube channel were added to the blog. JazzMap.ru main objective is to gather jazz performers and lovers, to provide latest information about upcoming concerts of Russian and foreign stars of jazz music, jazz festivals and interesting creative collaborations. A “westward expansion” in the form of two similars projects in London and Boston is planned for two coming years.

Drummer of LRK Trio

Ignat Kravtsov

Ignat Kravtsov was born in Ekaterinburg, and before moving to Moscow in 2013 played in a variety of jazz to rock bands. The teamwork with his bandmates in LRK Trio Evgeny Lebedev and Anton Revnyuk contributed him to show a new side as a universal drummer, capable of presenting own music within the band and implementing his bandmates’ excitingly sophisticated ideas in a creative way. Beyond the LRK Trio, he plays in a Russian indie rock band Therr Maitz and leads his own progressive rock&fusion band Amber Sept.

Key Event Director

Julia Mironchik

Having graduated from the Faculty of the directing of theatrical performances and festivities at Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Culture, Julia has been creating events, performances and theatrical shows as a director and scriptwriter since 2010. Her key projects include MegafonLive Festival 2015-2016 in 10 cities across Russia, National CRE Real Estate Awards Ceremony, ROSINFRA National Infrastructure Development Award and a whole range of cultural events, musical festivals, theater and fashion shows, musicals, conferences, awards ceremonies and other events for Russian and international companies.

Managing Director, Nasjonal jazzscene, President of Europe Jazz Network

Jan Ole Otnæs

His career as a jazz promoter started in 1969 when he presented Keith Jarrett Trio in his hometown. Jan Ole became the first director of Bodø Kulturhus a new – two venue performing space in Bodø in 1991. He was asked to take over as Artistic Director of Molde Int Jazz Festival in 2001, a position he had until August 2013, when he took over as managing director of Nasjonal Jazzscene – Victoria. Victoria is a 300 cap venue in Oslo presenting around 150 concerts per year, a variety of unestablished acts and nasjonal/ international artists like Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Esperanza Spalding, John McLaughlin etc.