FESTIVAL

Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa is the best Polish jazz festival
according to the Jazz Top 2020; survey of the Jazz Forum monthly. It is organized by the artistic milieu around the Sztuka Teatr Association. Its seat is in the city of Bielsko-Biała, but it also takes place in Katowice and Zabrze - cities of the Silesian agglomeration with over 5 million inhabitants. Festival events are presented in concert halls, clubs, theater, cinema, and even in a mountain chalet at an altitude of 1000 meters above sea level and in a historic mine 320 meters underground. As part of the event, every year there are over
a dozen mainstream concerts as well as club presentations, exhibitions, workshops and accompanying events. Almost 2,000 musicians from all over the world have participated in the 23 editions of Zadymka so far, including: Wayne Shorter, Benny Golson, Hank Jones, Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner, Abdullah Ibrahim, Ahmad Jamal, Archie Shepp, Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Joe Lovano, Maria Schneider, Roy Hargrove, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves,
Arturo Sandoval, Terence Blanchard, Kurt Elling, Jamie Cullum, Esperanza Spalding, Randy Brecker and many more.

 

The festival is financed from funds obtained from sponsors, local government and a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
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The director of the festival is actor and director Jerzy Batycki.
Prominent figures of Polish jazz have taken part in the work of the Festival Organizing Committee - Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, musician, composer and music journalist,
Paweł Brodowski, editor-in-chief of Jazz Forum or recently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, jazz expert and fan - Marian Oslislo and musician, composer Piotr Damasiewicz.