summer session kina 2023

News • 02.10.2024

Summer Session is a hit in China

Summer Session has been succesfully exported to China. Summer Session China 2024 kicks off on October 7th.

Summer Session China 2024

On Monday, the Summer Session China 2024 begins – an exchange project between Denmark and China aimed at fostering new musical collaborations through the traditional Danish summer school model, familiar from the Danish jazz conventions.

Five professional musicians with experience from the Danish Summer Session will travel to China to teach 60 talented Chinese musicians for a week. Additionally, two selected young Danish musicians, interested in exploring the Chinese market, will also participate.

The project is funded by a three-year grant from the S.C. Van Foundation, which supports cultural exchange between Denmark and China in a broad sense.

Summer Session is the perfect format when relationships mean everything

In China, personal relationships are crucial to success. Your professional and personal self are intertwined. Therefore, Summer Session provides the ideal format to build bridges and create lasting relationships, as musicians from both countries live and play together around the clock for an entire week. We have already seen the effects of last year’s convention, which led to new collaborative projects and growing interest in the Danish jazz scene in China.

The project could be a gateway into one of the world’s largest music markets for Danish musicians, as the work through Summer Session China allows us to get up close to the country’s key players and build relationships that wouldn’t be possible through email exchanges, festival collaborations, or tour programs.

Project manager of JazzDanmark’s East Asian activities, Martin Jensen

Experienced leaders and young talent on board

Summer Session China is a collaboration between JazzDanmark, Aranya International Jazz Week, Chinese journalist and DJ Zhang Youdai, and the artistic director of Summer Session China, Anders “AC” Christensen.

Anders AC has been involved in organizing Summer Session China since the pilot edition, held in Beijing in 2018, where the concept was tested, and again for the first full edition of the event in 2023. He has also been a part of the leadership of the Danish Summer Session for many years.

In 2025, the faculty will include not only Anders AC, but also Mette Lindberg, Jakob Høyer, Jacob Artved, and the American pianist Aaron Parks.

Additionally, JazzDanmark helps ensure that young, talented Danish musicians have the opportunity to travel and participate in the event. This year, in collaboration with Jazz9Tus, we have selected Aalborg-based musicians August Ørvad Jacobsen and Oliver Brun Thorup to join the event, as their band Ørvad/Brun caught attention at the Supernova Showcase 2024.

Background

Summer Session China is an adapted version of the Danish Summer Session, which for more than 40 years has fostered new musical collaborations across different skill levels, countries, and genres by offering Danish professional musicians instruction from prominent figures on the international jazz scene.

Experience has shown that the folk high school tradition, with its values of democratic learning and the dissolution of conventional hierarchy structures, is particularly well-suited for working with improvisational music. Chinese musicians also experienced this when JazzDanmark tested the format in China last year.

Info

Summer Session China 2024

  • Jazz gathering for professional and talented Danish and Chinese jazz musicians
  • Aranya, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, China
  • October 7–12, 2024
  • Supported by the S.C. Van Foundation and Aranya International Jazz Week

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