Guelph Jazz Festival and Colloquium

Over its 13-year history, The Guelph Jazz Festival has established a rock-solid international reputation for its bold mix of innovative programming and genuine community spirit. Heralded by The Globe and Mail as “one of the most visionary” music events in the country, it has repeatedly sought to celebrate performance practices that challenge and expand our understanding of the music’s defined limits. 

The 2007 season features a special thematic program called “People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz is Now!” accenting some of the most exciting new directions shaping the music in the new millennium. The festival has a reputation as a thriving hothouse of experimentation, as the “hippest place on the Canadian jazz scene” (Now Magazine), and as “the most determinedly contemporary musical event of its kind in the country” (The Globe and Mail).

The 2007 Festival presents contemporary artists experimenting with ever-new protocols of inquiry, new forms of cross-cultural dialogue and inquiry, new worlds of sound – artists, in short, who are defining the very shape and sound of jazz to come.

The Colloquium covers some timely topics and explorations with the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canada Council for the Arts among others at Guelph and other Universities.