LIMERICK City will host top international and Irish artists for the second annual Limerick Jazz Festival, which will run from September 26 to 29.
Building on the success of the inaugural festival last year, this year’s featured artists include Larry McKenna, a living legend of the Philadelphia jazz scene who has played with greats such as Woody Herman and Frank Sinatra. Limerick based Andreas Varady, a teenage guitar prodigy who spent the summer on tour with Quincy Jones, is a special guest of the Crisis Point Big Band, along with singer/guitarist Nigel Mooney. Louis Stewart and Jim Doherty will also perform.
For the year of The Gathering, the Festival’s international visitors have strong Irish connections like Irish-born and British-based award-winning vocalist Christine Tobin who will perform the songs of Leonard Cohen.
The announcement of this year’s festival was welcomed by Riverdance composer Bill Whelan, who is on the steering group for Limerick City of Culture 2014.
“The Limerick Jazz Festival is a natural development of the very strong jazz scene in the Mid-West,” Mr Whelan said.
“This year’s line-up features wonderful music with a very broad audience appeal. The organisers have made a big effort to keep ticket prices down and I hope that will encourage the public to attend even if they are not jazz fans already,” he added.
The headline acts will perform at a number of city centre venues including 69 O’Connell St. (formerly the Belltable Arts Centre), Dolan’s Warehouse and the Clarion Hotel.
There will be many other free performances across the city over the festival weekend, including a late night jazz trail and one of the highlights of the weekend will be a master class with top US musicians Larry McKenna and Tony Miceli at the Hunt Museum at 4pm on Saturday, 28th September.
John Daly from the Limerick Jazz Festival said they are hoping for another successful year.
“We are delighted to be staging the second annual Limerick Jazz Festival. Our 30 years of programming experience with the Limerick Jazz Society has allowed us to bring world-class artists here once again and all the concerts will suit both long-time jazz fans and music-lovers who might like to try something new,” said Mr Daly.
“We have a number of free events throughout the weekend including the Limerick Jazz Workshop’s Junior Group who will be performing on the Saturday at the Hunt Museum and we really hope people will come out and support us again, especially as we’ve worked very hard to make all the ticketed events really affordable,” he added.
For more information and full listings visit www.limerickjazzfestival.com
