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 Overview
The NYJF began in 1991 as the idea of Mike Skipper, head of music at St. Andrews College and Diocesan School for Girls, who invited teachers and pupils at selected high schools to attend a three-day festival where Darius Brubeck would give some guidance in jazz education focused on high school jazz programmes. The festival started with 43 students and three teachers, and was so successful that it rapidly attracted large numbers of participants such that now there are 320 students from all over South Africa, along with 50 teachers, 100 lecturers and performers, with a full administrative staff as well. Alan Webster, from Stirling High School, East London, took over as Director of the festival in 2001.
A National Schools’ Big Band was selected in 1995 for the first time, and from 1998 students from tertiary institutions began to attend, with the selection also of a Standard Bank National Youth Big Band. A third band - the small Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Band - began to be selected from 2001, drawing the cream of the improvisers, and playing South African jazz written and arranged by the conductor of the band: Marc Duby (2001), Barney Rachabane (2002), Darius Brubeck (2003), Carlo Mombelli (2004), Zim Ngqawana (2005), Brian Thusi (2006), Andrew Lilley (2007) and Neil Gonsalves (2008). Many of the young players selected to these national bands in the past eleven years have gone on to forge significant careers in professional jazz already, providing a critical foundation for the strengthening of South Africa’s jazz heritage.
Standard Bank took title sponsorship of the NYJF in 1998, and have continued to be the central, naming sponsor over the past decade. Additional funding has come from SAMRO, Mmino, Eastern Cape Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, ProHelvetia, and the governments of The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland. The SBNYJF has also had a three-year exchange programme with the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra through the Swedish-South African Culture Partnership Programme, through the Department of Arts and Culture and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency whereby Swedish students and musicians have performed in Grahamstown and the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Band has performed in Sweden.
The festival, sharing the audiences of the National Arts Festival, has become the most significant jazz development programme in the country, and its reputation for innovative performance from across the South African jazz spectrum – established and youth - is also becoming renowned. The SBNYJF is now incorporated within the Standard Bank Jazz Festival, Grahamstown and forms the official Main Jazz Stage of the Festival, with three top-class performances per night. Professional jazz performers and educators from around the country acknowledge its importance and happily agree to be lecturers, making the SBNYJF a vibrant, professional barometer of South African jazz and its future. The festival attracts the best jazz musicians in South Africa, and has hosted musicians from Australia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Zimbabwe, Norway, Finland, Argentina, Mexico, Britain, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland and the US.
Festival overview
The National Arts Festival has been running in Grahamstown (Eastern Cape, South Africa www.nationalartsfestival.co.za ) since 1974, attracting performers in all art forms from around South Africa and all over the world. It is undoubtedly the leading cultural exhibition in South Africa and attracts a heterogeneous audience of over 140 000 from around the country, who cram into what is normally a small settler town best known for its academic and legal institutions. Performance venues are thus created in any available venue (school and church halls etc.) and accommodation is at a premium. This, while not up to international festival norms, is what gives Grahamstown its unique character and the festival has developed a large and devoted network of artists and audience from around South Africa and the world.
The Jazz Festival – sponsored directly by Standard Bank since 1998, who sponsor jazz events regularly around the country – has been running for 15 years, as has the National Youth Jazz Festival (NYJF). The two festivals now run as a single entity, organised by the same administrative team, which provides a forum for sound education at the same time as a vibrant performance stage of aesthetic integrity, with the intention of showcasing the variety and depth of South African jazz; providing a unique intercultural opportunity with top international musicians; and teaching the top young players in the country the essence of jazz.
The Standard Bank Jazz Festival runs for the full 10 days of the National Arts Festival and caters for a variety of jazz styles. The festival incorporates the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival for the first 6 days of the festival, which brings together 250 of the top young jazz musicians in the country (who audition to get into the National Youth and National Schools Jazz Bands), 35 jazz educators and 80 jazz performers from South Africa and around the world.
The intention of the festival is to develop South African jazz:
- by providing educational opportunities for young players
- by encouraging artistic integrity and creativity on the Main Stage
- by creating a forum for South African musicians to network with peers from around the country and with foreign musicians
- by providing audiences with interesting, quality jazz
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