ELBJAZZ – More Than Just a Festival
The ELBJAZZ goals are defined pretty clearly: to get more people excited about Jazz, to make Jazz open to the public, and to support both national and international artists to play in great locations all year.

From the beginning until now, the focus lies on Hamburg, the home of ELBJAZZ. ELBJAZZ works on making Jazz more common in everyday life. Jazz is an essential part of a lively music scene – in this function, Jazz is to be recognized and supported.

Taking these wishes as a starting point, ELBJAZZ supports and initiates concert series and co-operates with other festivals, organizes “Ankerwürfe” (concerts and programs that give a pretaste of the actual festival), realizes co-productions and acts as the voice of Jazz in relevant boards. In addition to that, ELBJAZZ is (co-)founder of initiatives like Jazzmoves and the nonprofit organization HamburgJazz gGmbH. Together with the University of Music in Theatre Hamburg, ELBJAZZ supports the Hamburg Jazz scene and promotes talented newcomers with performance options. The international band project “Kehrwieder” helps students of three northern European countries to get together for joint working phases and following tours. Together with supporters and partners, ELBJAZZ coordinates and funds these activities.

Thus, the biggest project is the ELBJAZZ Festival, which connects thousands of visitors with the live-jazz-experience, every year. In very little time only, ELBJAZZ has become to a very important part of both the Hamburg culture scene and the heterogenous jazz scene.