Jazz Festival heralds summer

In expectation of a much bigger event, the Old Mutual Jazz Encounters label has been given to the City of Windhoek by the sponsor, Old Mutual Namibia.
The event’s label was officially presented to the City elders at breakfast at the Hilton on Tuesday this week. From this year, the music event will be known as the Windhoek Jazz Festival.
The event was first introduced in 2007 and has been a success from the initial 100 guest event to the 2011 Jazz Encounter attracting and wowing more than 4000 Namibians. It has matured to become the premier Jazz event on the Namibian arts and culture calender.
Speaking at the breakfast, Chief Executive Officer of Operations at Old Mutual, Sakaria Nghikembua said that the event has contributed positively to the local Jazz community and has delivered a world class platform for local and international artists alike.
Deputy Mayor of the City of Windhoek, Gerson Kamatuka said that the City of Windhoek is proud to host the event as part of its aims to support arts and culture in Windhoek.It helps the City in its efforts to market Windhoek as a tourist city and also shows their commitment to promoting Windhoek as a vibrant city. He also said that the City of Windhoek is working around the clock to make all areas of Windhoek look better including the informal settlements.
Old Mutual and the City of Windhoek together with the event’s newly committed Jazz partners, namely DB Audio, AdForceDDB, Air Namibia, the Hilton Windhoek, 99FM, the National Arts Council of Namibia and Heineken are all working together to ensure that the event goes from strength to strength. The organisers said they all share Namibia’s love for Jazz and are committed to “bring Jazz to all”.
Old Mutual said it remains the event’s main sponsor to ensure that the broader ownership delivers a wider range of ideas from all partners in the context of the Old Mutual Jazz Encounters experience and expertise base.
This years event will be packed with lots of surprises. The names of the artists to perform will be announced at a later stage as well as the ticket prices. Ashante Manetti, Stakeholder Consultant at Old Mutual who is also in charge of the event said that they are not sure what the turn-out will be because they have not yet set the ticket prices, but it is expected to be much bigger than last year with all the partners on board.
The Windhoek Jazz Festival is scheduled for 03 November at the Hage Geingob Stadium. Tickets will be available via Computicket.