The oldest continuously running jazz festival in Europe, with a broad and extensive programme that features some of the world’s biggest names alongside more experimental and niche expressions.
Festivals
For many reasons, festivals seem to be the primary vehicle for music concerts in Slovenia, and the trend of the ‘festivalisation of culture’ is going strong. Thus, festivals greatly outnumber concert series and are also a more stable feature of the scene than clubs. This is also due to lack of bigger urban settlements in Slovenia, making club concerts economically as well as demographically unfeasible.
The state capital, Ljubljana, is the heart of the national music life. However, of the 8 biggest cities in Slovenia (with median populations being about 30.000), six of them have a jazz festival, while the other 2 had one just recently stopped. However, only a few festivals can afford the mainstream stars from abroad. Local and regional summer mixed-genre festivals play an important role in staging concerts in Slovenia and both the more straight-ahead as well as left-field takes on jazz music are well represented there. Most of these festivals are not featured below, but some can be found listed in the Culture.si database and its festival infographic.
There are also one or two mainstream jazz concert series (like the Ljubljana Castle Jazz Club), hosting well known Slovene acts, mostly of either a traditional or eclectic bent (venturing into soul, r’n’b, etc), and also a couple additional jazz & improv concert series whose existence is precarious and sporadic.
EJN MEMBER
Image
Cerkno,
Slovenia
May
Located in the small and peripheral town of Cerkno, this festival presents a varied and generally more adventurous take on contemporary jazz and improvised music. Known for a great, cosy atmosphere and about 400 daily visitors.
Image
Maribor,
Slovenia
A big mixed-genre summer festival taking place in Maribor, Slovenia’s second biggest city. It often shares a part of the line-up with the Ljubljana Jazz festival (which precedes it for about a week).
Image
Slovenia
Taking place in an Alpine valley, this boutique festival runs an eclectic musical policy that features (usually less known) jazz acts from abroad with experimental electronica, rock and all-night raves by the river.
Image
Slovenia
Set by the border with Italy, in a very picturesque setting, and organised by the notable drummer Zlatko Kaučič.
Image
Image
Slovenia
Holding a rather suggestive name, October Jazz is an autumn festival presenting contemporary jazz music. Taking place in the city of Nova Gorica and its surrounding region, the event has been organised by the Nova Gorica Arts Centre since 2015.
Image
Ljubljana,
Slovenia
A pair of complementary summer festivals in the old part of Ljubljana, featuring classical music, world music and also jazz acts – the latter are most often set on street stages.
Image
Slovenia
As the name implies, this festival is devoted to Slovenian acts. However, it does a play an important part in the landscape and also acts as one of the jazz culture focal points of the Slovene Carinthia region.
EJN MEMBER
Image
Ljubljana,
Slovenia
May
Though generally known as a world music festival, Druga Godba has always been transcending the label and is often responsible for (broadly understood) jazz concert highlights of the year.
EJN MEMBER
Image
Slovenia
Another Slovene-artist only festival that tries to single out the outstanding or notable up-n-coming acts of the past & coming year.
EJN MEMBER
Image
Slovenia
A weekly series of concerts, running for about a dozen years now. Though young, it is in some ways the primary ‘institution’ for introducing contemporary, cutting-edge jazz music to Slovene audiences.
Image
Slovenia
Organised by Narodni dom Maribor, the main cultural centre of the Eastern part of Slovenia. Its programme is of a contemporary bent, and one could see it as a down-scaled and somewhat more sporadic version of Tuesday Clubbing.
Image
Slovenia
For over 20 years an extremely important avenue for explorative music in Slovenia.
Image
Slovenia
As the name implies, this series straddles the outer improv reaches of the jazz category. It is a nomadic one and hasn’t got a regular venue nor a set rhythm.
Image
Slovenia
The so-called Pinela’s Living Room is a series of house concerts that boasts an unexpectedly strong programme. It is straddling different genres but featuring some pretty outstanding jazz gigs.
EJN MEMBER
Image
Ravne na Koroškem,
Slovenia
A surprisingly successful and resilient concert series in the sparsely populated, former-industrial yet also pretty rural region of Slovene Carinthia.
Image
Slovenia
Not really a festival, this concert series is organised by the Jazz Cerkno Institute.
Image
Slovenia
Another concert series opting to call itself a festival. It hosts mostly Slovene gigs.
Image
Slovenia
A concert series in a small-town, super peripheral setting, at the south-eastern edge of Slovenia. Somehow creating and maintaining an audience where there should be none, it manages to seamlessly flow from noise rock evening to free jazz gigs.