Dear Jazz Lovers
Akbank, with a reputable position among the world's big financial institutions, believes that institutions that have a share and responsibility in the development of the country also need to provide services in the subjects of culture and art.
Akbank has achieved a rich art-culture program that covers various studies in publishing, music, and plastic arts besides the banking services with this belief and understanding from its establishment until today. Akbank 1st International Jazz Festival is one of the outcomes of this understanding.
Jazz that was born in the American continent many years ago is a universal music. It has interpreted the changing thoughts, feelings and associations in connection with the human-technology relation, and has become the passion of masses with its continuously renewed, inexhaustible, and investigative properties.
Inspired by this thought, Akbank is organizing Akbank 1st International Jazz Festival with the purpose of presenting to the Turkish jazz listeners the contemporary jazz musicians under the same roof, a seemingly impossible feat to achieve.
At the festival you will find masters that have rightfully taken their place in the history of jazz such as Max Roach, important names of contemporary jazz such as Ahmed Abdullah, pioneering groups that use all types of music within the jazz tradition such as Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Senem Diyici, who successfully represents our country internationally.
The purpose in our selecting these jazz performers and groups is to present the most recent quests and the latest trends to jazz lovers.
One of the most important evidences of a country's wealth is the certain levels of cultural media that it attains. Starting off from this view, Akbank is establishing a culture, art, and education center in Beyoglu, under the name of Akev (Akhouse). Our purpose is to present innovations and contemporary quest in music, as well as visual arts and plastic arts to art-lovers.
Exhibitions, concerts and publications will take place and training will be given in various art branches in Akev, which is planned to be put into service at the end of next year. We believe that Akev, with these qualifications, will constitute an important center in the development of contemporary art in our country.
Now we leave you alone with "Jazz". Our hope is that Akbank 1st International Jazz Festival be followed by a second, third and others, and for jazz music to take its rightful place in our cultural life.