June 26 – July 5, 2026.
The Unpredictable as a Guiding Principle
In 2026, the Südtirol Jazzfestival Alto Adige will present itself as an extensive laboratory for contemporary jazz music, with unpredictability at its core. Through new venues, wide-ranging projects and unconventional concert formats, the festival creates a dynamic network of sound, landscape and encounters. This year's edition brings together international talents and contemporary jazz with experimental club culture, collective improvisation and performances set in beautiful natural surroundings.
From Large Ensemble to Landscape
The festival opens with the powerful Gard Nilssen Supersonic Orchestra. This large ensemble will not only deliver a spectacular opening concert, but also shape the festival beyond the first evening. Much like a sequence of cell division in biology, the musicians break away from the orchestral body and appear in various constellations across different festival spaces, such as the Supersonic Horns performance at the Silvester Chapel in Vallunga, in the middle of the Dolomites.
This dynamic unfolds into a richly interconnected concert programme, showcasing international projects and improvisational encounters throughout South Tyrol. In urban spaces such as the Alcide Berloffa Park, the nordic band Team Hegdal performs, while the Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra takes over Piazza Walther in the heart of Bolzano old town. Spins & Spells play at the Roner Distillery in Termeno and Anaïs Drago leads the festival deep into the Alpine landscape. There, the raw acoustics of the Prettau mine Climate Tunnel become part of the music itself.
New Venues and Familiar Stages
The festival expands its map with numerous new venues. Joining for the first time are AHOI Mini Golf in Bolzano, the Merano Racecourse, the historic inn Gasthof zum Hirschen in Sarnthein, Hotel Bad Ratzes, Haus Guggenberg in Brixen, a musical hike to the miners’ village St. Martin am Schneeberg, and the lakeside stage at Wunderwald in Klobenstein. Gries Abbey Church and other pitoresque locations in nature also become temporary stages for contemporary music.
At the same time, many familiar venues remain integral to the festival. Concerts will again take place at Parkhotel Laurin, Fiera Bolzano trade fair, harpf Beverage Store, Sterzing Town Square, Parkhotel Holzner, Gasthof Jocher at Monte San Vigilio, the Ost West Club in Merano, and the Batzenhäusl in Bolzano. Once again, the festival will stretch across the whole region of South Tyrol, from Bolzano and Merano to Brixen and Bruneck, and into the remote valleys and mountain landscapes beyond.
Openness, Improvisation, and Club Culture
With 'Sonic Reactions', the festival introduces a format based on radical openness, bringing musicians together on stage for the first time with no prior preparation. These intimate, short concerts create musical blind dates, placing spontaneous reactions and immediate communication at the heart of the performance.
The late-night series follows the same idea as the festival embraces club culture, electronic sounds and hybrid concert forms without losing sight of its improvisational core. The spectrum ranges from electroacoustic border crossings and uncompromising improvisation to danceable fusions of jazz, club music, and experimental pop. Artists such as Anaïs Drago, Elektro Guzzi, LVDF, O.N.E. and Kit Downes exemplify a programme that deliberately breaks down stylistic barriers.
Projects, Rituals, and New Encounters
Once again, this year's festival emphasises collaboration with young musicians from the Euregio region. A new cross-border project, directed by Laura Zöschg, brings together artists from South Tyrol, Tyrol, and Trentino to create space for shared musical development and new artistic encounters.
The increasing social and spatial awareness of the festival is reflected in the 'Kabarila Jazz Ritual'. Now in its fourth stage, this long-term project is a collective ritual situated between concert, performance and sensory experience – five years, five hours.
The collaboration with the Bolzano Film Festival Bozen continues the dialogue with other artistic forms. Matteo Paggi and Andrea Grossi will create a live soundtrack for a selection of Catalan silent films, turning the cinema into an improvised sound art space for one evening.
Music in Motion
The festival continually forges connections with nature. Many concerts take place in natural settings such as forests and mountain locations. When Matthias Schriefl and his project 'Brazilian Motions' take musicians and audiences on a hike together, the journey becomes part of the performance. Similarly, the Sheen Trio and the duo of Sissel Vera Pettersen and Eirik Hegdal not only use the Alpine landscape as scenery, but also as an acoustic element.
Once again, the Südtirol Jazzfestival Alto Adige shows that jazz is particularly exciting wherever it creates spaces between people, places and the unexpected. It is this openness that gives the festival its particular strength, approaching musical experience not as consumption, but as a listening adventure.
Discover the full programme at suedtiroljazzfestival.com