Delegates

Thomas was born in the former GDR in Jena. After high school he started studying physics and became a physicist at the Carl Zeiss factory. In 1980 he was a co-founder of the Jazz in Paradise jazzclub. After the political turn in 1990 he started with the Jazzmeile Thüringen festival and has been an artistic director ever since. In 2013, the Jazzmeile Thüringen received the Art award of the free state of Thuringia.

Steffen was a booker for the renowned Turm Jazzclub series and the International Moritzburg Jazzfestival in his hometown Halle. From 1997 to 2012 he was running his booking agency Subtone Concerts. Since 2009 he's been working as a CEO and artistic director of Jazzclub Tonne in Dresden/Germany. Steffen is a member of the Bundeskonferenz Jazz/Federal Jazz Conference Germany and also artistic director of Jazz Talentzz in Leipzig.

Radek is a bass player, producer and composer from Wroclaw, Poland. He’s a founder of international artists platform & festival Eklektik Session. Besides being a musician, producer and festival director, Bond is also a traveller, currently developing cultural and charity projects in East Africa.

Piotr is the Artistic Director of the Jazztopad Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. Its most distinctive feature is commitment to commissioning new music, presenting special projects tailored for the festival and hosting the most important jazz and improvised music artists. Since 2015, the festival has had its annual edition in New York.

Peter is the founder of Alessa Records label for jazz, world music and blues (he produced up to 500 albums to date). He’s also the founder and artistic director of various jazz/improvised music festivals and events in Austria including the Jazz Festival in Steyr, blues series in Linz organized in collaboration with the chamber of labour called Tuesday the Bluesday and STIWA Jazzforum in Hagenberg among others.

Ronnie Scott's has remained a central constant in Paul's lifelong love affair with jazz. Over the past 10 years, Paul has made focussed efforts to present European jazz in London particularly collaborations with Norwegian, Czech, Latvian and Dutch-based musicians and is keen to further links with the vibrant global scene as well as the currently burgeoning UK scene.

Martyna is the head of programming of the Institution of Culture Katowice City of Gardens, where she programmes the Katowice JazzArt Festival and the world music festival Gardens of Sounds. She specialises in curating interdisciplinary and social projects within the programme of Katowice - UNESCO Creative City of Music. She was a member of the team that organised WOMEX 2017 in Katowice, is a board member of Europe Jazz Network, and in 2019 was part of the programme committee for European Jazz Conference in Novara.

Krzysztof is a journalist, founder of Donos kulturalny. He’s a managing editor of jazzpress.pl web page. He writes for polishjazz.blogspot.com and prestigious Polish jazz magazines JazzPRESS and Jazz Forum. Frequent collaborator of Radio Jazz FM and a host of Kino Jazz events.

Christoph works freelance as a music writer for various publications, print and online, amongst them Germany’s renowned jazz magazines Jazz thing and Jazzthetik. He’s a founder of „musicadomundo“ concert agency which promotes and organizes concerts with international artists from the world music and jazz scene. Christoph is also the co-founder and artistic director of the „JazzNacht Zollverein“, an annual music event at UNESCO world heritage site Zeche Zollverein in Essen, Germany.

Anna is a freelance music journalist, PR specialist, director of the Nouvelle Prague festival and conference and the deputy editor-in-chief of the Cultural Magazine UNI. She has worked as the Head of Communications at Ameba Production (organizer of Rock For People festival and Prague Summer Festival). She also manages the Belarussian-Czech duo Zabelov Group and singer-songwriter David Pomahač. She's a member of the grant committee of the Ministry of Culture for Alternative Music and member of the advisory board of the Czech pro-export office SoundCzech.

Friederike studied Media and Cultural Sciences and Arts Management and recently finished her Master. She currently lives in Hamburg and works with Tina Heine, who is the artistic director of Jazz & The City in Salzburg. Friederike works as her program-assistant and is responsible for the Artist and Production Management at the Festival.

Boris is mainly a guitar player, singer and composer. He’s been active on Slovakian and international music scenes and besides his musical activities he’s also a founder of the music blog jazz.sk, promoter of Slovakian Awards for the Best Jazz Album ESPRIT and supporter of young talents via a competition Jazz START UP.

Helge has been a project manager in the pro-export music office mica - music austria since 1994. He has coordinated several significant cultural projects in Austria and other European countries. He has participated in many creative and organizational activities within export initiatives of mica - music austria in jazz and world music genres.

Bernhard is an active jazz saxophone player who graduated from the prestigious Berklee College of Music and has performed with many renowned musicians worldwide. He has also been the chairman of the festival Poysdorf Jazz & Wine Summer/Jazz Werkstatt Poysdorf since 2009.

Pavla Slívová has been working as a program manager, booker and a member of the production team of Colours of Ostrava since 2009. She’s started her career as a producer in the TEMPL club during the golden era of Ostrava's famous Stodolní Street. Pavla regularly attends European conferences such as IFF, WOMEX, ILMC, Eurosonic.

Andreas is based in Vienna, Austria, and has been working as a music journalist for many years. As a freelancer he wrote for newspapers and magazines in Austria and Germany, since 2015 he is focusing on his job at Radio Ö1 at ORF / National Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, currently as Head of Jazz, Pop and World Music.

Paul has been an active musician since the mid of the 80s and has had the opportunity to perform and play with the likes of David Murray, George Adams and Kirk Lightsey. He founded and runs his own Jazzfestival INNtöne in Diersbach. Paul also owns a small independent jazz label, PAO Records, which produces international jazz stars as well as young Austrian talents.

Martin has been an editor and author of the magazine Jazz thing since 1995. Since 2005 he has been working as an author and host for the jazz department of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk. He occasionally writes for Die ZEIT, between 2006 and 2011 he was editor and author for the moers festival magazine, from 2013 he is editorially responsible for the publications of the WDR 3 Jazzfest. In 2017 he was awarded the “German Jazz Journalist Prize” at the jazzahead! in Bremen.

Otmar lives in Graz and works as a music journalist for the Kleine Zeitung and music magazines, and runs a weekly radio broadcast. He’s the founder and director of the jazz venue StockwerkJazz in Graz (since 1994) and artistic director of the International Jazz Festival Leibnitz.

Jan is one of the founders of the Nerudný fest organization and has had a 12 years experience in the field of organizing festivals and cultural events. He’s been responsible for artistic direction of the Mladí ladí jazz festival and in 2018 he was jury member at the German prestigious showcase Jazzahead.

Ross runs all music operations for Pizza Express, covering over 1500 shows a year across multiple live music venues in the UK, including the renowned Pizza Express Jazz Club, London. With a broad international artistic programme, Ross will be keen to hear and learn more about Czech & Austrian Jazz.

Lukas has been working as a booker and a member of the team of Kulturhaus Sargfabrik in Vienna since 2016. He is responsible for the artist and production management at the venue and regularly attends the conference WOMEX.

Michal started as an independent concert booker/promoter and bands manager, gaining experience as a music curator at Centre For Contemporary Art in Warsaw. He created and developed a strategy for an alternative music sector and co-organized a number of events all over the world under the label “Don’t Panic! We’re from Poland”. Since 2019 he has been involved in the programmation of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) concert hall.

Abel promotes jazz, contemporary and classical concerts at Budapest Music Center (BMC) and Opus Jazz Club since 2017. With more than 400 concerts each year, the core mission of BMC is to present contemporary Hungarian and European music in a coordinated way as a concert venue, record label, music library, information center, and creative space.

Since 2004, Mario has been head of the Kunsthaus Nexus in Saalfelden, an arts centre staging 250 events per year. In addition to organizing the cultural programme at the Nexus, he is the artistic director of the International Jazzfestival Saalfelden which takes place at the end of August, featuring approximately 80 concerts.

Patrizia currently signs responsible for the artistic programming and implementation of the</p> <p>HÖFEFEST St. Pölten in Lower Austria, an annual festival utilizing private patios in the heart</p> <p>of the city by opening them up to the public via concerts, art acts and readings. Also, she</p> <p>runs communication for the Jazz im Hof Festival St. Pölten and is a booker and marketer for various Austrian and Italian ensembles in old music and jazz. Right now, Patrizia is working with Caroline Berchotteau on establishing a vibrant and constant jazz music series in St. Pölten.

Sylwester is an accomplished tenor saxophonist, composer, producer, and a founder and artistic director of the Szczecin Jazz Festival. He is experiencing major success in his music career, built around collaboration with other artists, and partnering with international jazz institutions through his organization Szczecin Jazz.

After graduating with a jazz degree from the Guildhall School of Music, Matt started working as a booking agent and manager, first during 6 years at a London-based agency and now with his own company. During this time he has booked more than 1,000 international gigs. Alongside his booking and management work, Matt runs the website Jazzfuel.com which shares career advice to jazz musicians around the world, via articles, guides and interviews with other people within the industry.

Back in the days when he worked as a glass machine operator, a guard, a porter, a storekeeper, a miner in uranium mines, a reporter, an insurance consultant, a bookseller and a seller of music media, he listened intensively to music and passionately educated himself. Now his dream came true - he also writes about music. Currently for Jazzport, HIS Voice and Týdeník Rozhlas.

Andrej founded his festival Oravajazz eleven years ago and he’s been the organizer and artistic director ever since. Besides that he also runs many other cultural events.

Patrik used to write articles about jazz for several printed media already during his university studies. After graduating from university, he worked as editor and program director focused on jazz at Slovak Radio in Bratislava. In 1989 he was one of the founders of the Slovak Jazz Society and in 2005 he founded and has run the Slovak online jazz magazine skjazz.sk as editor-in-chief since.

Since 1995, Milan has been the head of the music department of Radio Proglas in Brno, where he takes care of, among others, regular interviews with musicians and many other programs about jazz, world music, blues and related music genres. He moderates the show Interview of the Month on the Czech Radio Jazz station and also writes about jazz in the printed magazines UNI and Harmonie and on the music blog Brno-music friendly city. He is a member of the international panel of radio publicists World Music Charts Europe.

Italian agent and promoter Luigi Sidero, a veteran of the European jazz scene who has worked with some of the most refined jazz artists and festivals in Europe, assumed responsibility for MWI’s bookings in Central & Eastern Europe. With a strong experience in musical scene and a long career as jazz & modern pianist, he's seeking new challenges and responsibilities to progress career.