Talent development

In the 1990s, the festival established the youth project "Jazzfantene" in collaboration with the Norwegian Jazz Federation. Here, professional jazz musicians held seminars with young musicians of upper secondary school age in Hamar, Gjøvik, and Lillehammer a few weeks before the festival. The whole thing concluded with a gathering and concert during the festival.

When the Jazzfant project was discontinued, the festival established Jazz Youth, an offer for young people between 15 and 20 years old. Here, youth from the region are invited to a seminar during the festival with music educators who have a connection to jazz. The seminar concludes with a concert together with their teachers on the festival's last day. This offer is still available and has now been carried out since 2001, and several of the former participants today have a career as performing jazz musicians.

Since 2003, the project "JazzIncubator" has been a regular feature. This is in collaboration with Lillehammer University College (now Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences), event management students and third-year students at the TV school, as well as various music education programs in Norway, with the aim of presenting Nordic jazz talents and at the same time providing training in cultural production and in carrying out multi-camera productions.

For several years, the festival, in collaboration with one of our sponsors, has awarded a Talent Award to promising young musicians from Innlandet. These also get to hold their self-produced concert in the main program the following year. In recent years, they have also been offered to play the Workfloor Jazz concerts, meaning they have small concerts at workplaces during the festival week.

Magnus Bakken. Photo: Christina Marx

JazzIncubator | Photo: Roel Puijk