Copenhagen Jazz Festival features Aaltonen and Innanen

In the first week of July (1–10 July), jazz will take over the Danish capital, as the Copenhagen Jazz Festival brings hundreds of jazz concerts to the city. The festival will welcome also a group of esteemed international jazz musicians, including several Finns.

One of the headliners of the festival will be Juhani Aaltonen Quartet, playing at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse on 2 July. The all-star combo of Iro Haarla (piano, harp), Ulf Krokfors (bass), Reiska Laine (drums) and Nordic Council Music Prize nominated Juhani Aaltonen (sax, flute) himself, will highlight one of the festival's main themes, 21st Century Jazz.

Contemporary jazz will be played also by saxophonist Mikko Innanen, another nominee for this year's Nordic Council Music Prize. Innanen will take part in the festival in several different multi-national groups. On 7 July, he will be on stage with three other outstanding improvisers, Liudas Mockunas, Jacob Anderskov and Tom Rainey, with their joint group AMIR. Two days later he will go even more towards the avant-garde with the pan-Nordic band Kasper Tranberg's Fluidity.

More Finnish colour to the festival will be brought by singer Johanna Sulkunen (Johanna Elina), who will sing with her multi-national groups Sulkunen, Johanna Elina Group and IKI on 4, 5 and 9 July at different venues. She will also perform with Mikko Innanen on July 10.

The winner for this year's Nordic Council Music Prize was announced on 1 June. The Prize went to Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson.

Merja Hottinen / Fimic
1 June, 2011