At least 11,000 people have already visited the shows of Alfa Jazz Fest that is taking place in Ukraine’s western city of Lviv on June 23-27, and organizers expect at least 7,000 more to come before the festival ends.
That only accounts for the guests of the festival’s main stage that is dedicated to Eddie Rosner, which was sold out for every performance. Many more guests flocked to the free areas in the surrounding park, and can’t be accounted for. They listened to the performances and watched the broadcast while sitting on the grass or dancing to the music.
Apart from that, two more stages were installed on the central Rynok Square and Potocki Palace Square for everyone to listen to jazz for free.
Ukrainians and foreigners of all ages from Lviv, other Ukrainian cities, and from abroad, have come to listen to world-renowned stars of the jazz scene, as well as to meet friends and stroll around the beautiful city, located some 545 kilometers west of Kyiv.
Gray-haired Anna-Magdalyna Mazuryk, 67, lives in Lviv and attends Jazz Fest performances on the Rynok Square every year. Dressed in a blouse with a floral pattern, white trousers, and flat shoes, she was dancing energetically, waving her hand to jazz rhythms on June 24.
“I always dance like this and sometimes people even approach me and ask if I’m a jazz musician,” she says laughing. “I adore music, including jazz. I’ve been listening to it since childhood when my father introduced me to it.”
Mazuryk used to work in the Lviv City Council, but now is retired and “has nothing to do,” so she attends many events held in Lviv and travels to festivals to other Ukrainian cities.
Iryna Khaba, 32, is also from Lviv. She and her husband Ostap have been going to Alfa Jazz shows for seven years in a row, since its first year. Last year they took their nine-month-old son with them for the first time. This year, he is almost two years old, and he jumps happily in a small inflatable castle near the main stage. The parents take turns to see the performances.
“My husband watches the performance, while I play with our son,” Khaba says. “Now I’ll go to our seats for a while, and he will stay with the boy.”
Unlike Mazuryk and Khaba family, many had to travel to Lviv from afar to enjoy the festival.
Francis Mazuet, 55, a teacher and photographer from France, who lives in Kyiv, has come to Lviv’s Alfa Jazz Fest for the third time. He says he likes the event a lot.
Ukrainian singer Jamala applauds during the performance of China Moses, American vocalist and daughter of legendary jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, during the Alfa Jazz Festival in Lviv on June 25. (Volodymyr Petrov)
“I love jazz, of course,” he says. “And also, Lviv is a good city.”
Rikke Hiker, 44, a doctor from Denmark, has traveled to Lviv with her husband and two other friends to meet with her Ukrainian friends at Alfa Jazz Fest. Hiker says she has heard about the festival before, and finally decided to come herself after her friends invited her.
“I just came to the festival, it looks spectacular, but I don’t have a full impression yet,” she said, adding that jazz is not her primary choice of music but her husband is a fan of it.
However, Hiker criticized the organizers, saying she “was confused” by many commercial stands and advertisement. Her friend Iryna Matsevko, a historian who lives in Lviv and attends Alfa Jazz Fest every year, agrees.
“This festival promotes itself as a high-level event, but all these commercial things make it look like (it’s) inside a cheap mall,” she said. “It has a negative impact on the impression from the festival, especially among foreigners.”
Matsevko also said that many seats stayed empty despite all the tickets to the performances at the Eddie Rosner stage being sold out. At the same time, scalpers have been selling tickets to the Alfa Jazz shows on the streets and online for a higher price.
Roman Tychkivskyy, a manager with the Economic Leadership Program under which Western NIS Enterprise Fund implements a series of projects such as the Ukrainian Leadership Academy, has come to the Alfa Jazz Fest from Kyiv for the third time. He says he likes everything about the event.
“It has become a platform where Ukrainians from different communities can come together,” he says.
Tychkivskyy plays saxophone and loves jazz, however, he says he knows that not all guests of the festival really love it.
“This music is kind of not for everyone,” he says, “but it becomes more popular because organizers know how to serve it.”
