This week, three selected Danish jazz bands are traveling to Korea to perform at the country’s largest showcase festival for jazz and folk music, Seoul Music Week, and will subsequently tour venues across the country. The project, called DKxSMW, is a coordinated effort between JazzDanmark and Seoul Music Week and is part of JazzDanmark’s large-scale Asian initiative, the Asia Project.

Festival exchange, touring, and industry professionals from around the world

The three bands were selected by Seoul Music Week from the musicians participating in the Asia Project. The festival has placed special emphasis on the potential of the music within the Korean jazz scene to ensure long-term impact.

The selected bands are Lilly & Gilad Hekselman, Johanna Sulkunen, and Horse Orchestra. In addition to a concert at the major showcase festival, all the bands will continue on tour across Korea. Apart from their concerts, they will have the opportunity to meet industry professionals, musicians, and journalists from both Korea and around the world. Over the next few weeks, a total of 14 concerts featuring Danish jazz will take place across the country.

In addition to the performing bands, the festival has invited a small delegation of Danish industry professionals to visit the festival. Thus, JazzDanmark will be represented by project manager Martin Jensen and interpreter and assistant for DKxSMW, Halym Kim, while Roskilde Festival will be represented by programmer Nicklas Weis Damkjær and the Danish jazz media Jazz Special by journalist Birger Thøgersen.

DKxSMW

The DKxSMW project, which is part of the Asia Project, was kickstarted during this summer’s Danish jazz festivals, where three Korean bands and a handful of industry professionals visited the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Aarhus Jazz Festival, and Jazz9tus in Aalborg to perform concerts and meet representatives from the Danish jazz industry.

The project is a continuation of JazzDanmark’s outreach in Korea in 2019, when four Danish bands visited Korea’s largest jazz festival, Jarasum Intl. Jazz Festival, as part of the celebration of 100 years of Danish-Korean diplomatic relations. This visit established contact with a wide segment of the Korean jazz scene. After having hosted Seoul Music Week during the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, the agreement for an exchange project was developed in collaboration with the festival and the production company Soundpuzzle.

One of the participating bands from the 2019 outreach, Horse Orchestra, which is also part of DKxSMW, has just released a mini-documentary about their trip, which you can watch here.

The project is co-financed by the Augustinus Foundation, Korean Arts Management Service, Seoul Music Week, the Danish Embassy in Seoul, and the Danish Arts Foundation.