Wil Campa will be performing a concert from a theatre in Havanna, Cuba for the 25th anniversary of the Medicine Hat JazzFest.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
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After last year was cancelled, the Medicine Hat JazzFest started planning for a virtual festival this year for its 25th anniversary. Lyle Rebbeck, executive artistic director, says they decided in September they were not going to have a second cancellation.
“We made the decision early on to start building the skills and the team to do a digital and virtual jazz festival, and we certainly kept alongside of that all along the option to add in-person performances if it’s allowed. But here we are less than three weeks before our start date and that still is undetermined. So, we’re very glad we made that decision last September,” said Rebbeck.
Rebbeck says they worked hard to not only bring a digital festival to the community, but to do it in a way combining a focus on the best quality of audio and video with the experience of being able to interact with the artists on Zoom.
The organization used Zoom when it attended a Canada-wide festival in November, and it decided it would be the best platform. Rebbeck adds it gives the flexibility to turn cameras and audio off to focus on the performance, and to turn the cameras and audio on to interact.
“It’s like a melding of both worlds,” he said. “It’s like being able to go into the concert hall, have the lights go down and sit and really experience the music and then to kind of turn the lights on and have a chance to talk to the musician.”
This year’s performers come from all over the world – Holland, U.S.A., Canada and even Cuba – Wil Campa is one of Cuba’s top bands, says Rebbeck, and he will be performing a concert from a theatre in Havanna, Cuba. Rebbeck says there will also be three salsa dance lessons with a dance studio from Vancouver.
Rebbeck says if restrictions allow the festival to host in-person events, it would likely be the clubs and pubs section of the festival, with local musicians performing in restaurants and bars in the city.
“First of all, those establishments are hungry to have the public back in their doors, on their patios or wherever it happens to be, so it’s a way of us supporting that part of our local community and same with the local musicians, they’ve been without their usual playing and revenue stream through all this as well. So, that would be the place we would start,” said Rebbeck.
JazzFest runs June 21-27 and is free for everyone to register – however, you can donate to the Medicine Hat JazzFest, which is spending funds on performers, its production crew and video costs that are not normally there for them.
“We really do want people to see this as an opportunity to experience this festival they’re used to experiencing, to support artists and this local organization that presents it and to really anticipate and look forward to our 26th anniversary, a year from now, when we can get back together and celebrate what we’ve come through together and appreciate in all new ways what it means to be together as a community,” he said.
