Projects

Finnish Jazz Federation’s projects focus on developing the jazz sector’s skillbase and opportunities in changing operational environments.

Knowledge and best practice are shared through networking. Our current projects focus on how to consider the various aspects of sustainability and responsibility, both nationally and internationally. .

  • Finnish Jazz Federation and its several member communities are involved in the four-year EU-funded Better Live – A Sustainable Circulation of Musicians in Europe project, which aims to develop and promote more environmentally and socially sustainable touring in Europe.

    The goal of the Better Live project is to reduce emissions resulting from artists’ and audiences’ travel while maintaining – or even expanding – the geographical diversity of concert programs. These objectives are advanced through collaborative program planning among country-specific touring networks, enabling broader tours. Broader tours are expected to decrease the carbon footprint per concert and increase cultural diversity per carbon footprint.

    The project has eleven main partners: Périscope (France), Bimhuis (Netherlands), Improvised Music Company (Ireland), G Livelab Tampere (Finland), Wytwórnia (Poland), Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene (Norway), Zavod Sploh (Slovenia), Plataforma Jazz España (Spain), Jazzahead (Germany), EMEE – European Music Exporters Exchange (Belgium), and The Cluster (Greece). The Finnish Jazz Federation and its several member organisations, under the leadership of G Livelab Tampere, form part of the Finnish touring network, responsible for organizing approximately 30 concerts during the project.

    Members of the touring network become part of an international network of operators, learn about producing more sustainable concerts, and receive EU funding for their tours. The project calculates emissions from musicians’ and audiences’ travel through data collection by participants and compares the carbon footprint of musicians’ travel to the baseline situation before the project. Additionally, it evaluates the geographical diversity of programs compared to the baseline.

    The Better Live project is funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union and the Culture Promotion Fund of the Polish Ministry of Culture.

    For more information about the Better Live project:

    Valtteri Pokela
    Communications and Production Coordinator
    Finnish Jazz Federation
    valtteri.pokela@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 44 512 5578

    Project website: https://betterlivemusic.com/

  • The Finnish Jazz Federation is participating in an international project where Jazz Danmark’s award-winning JazzCamp for Girls program was expanded to Finland, Sweden, and Poland during 2022. Additionally, the program has been organized in the United Kingdom since 2019.

    This multinational project facilitates close collaborations between participants, sharing ideas and knowledge about best practice in their long-term endeavours to correct the industry’s gender imbalance. In Finland, the first JazzCamp for Girls was held in 2022 in collaboration with the Pori Jazz Festival and the Palmgren Conservatory as part of the Pori Jazz Kids program. In 2023 and 2024, two camps were organized: one in Pori and another in Turku, in partnership with Jazz City Turku and the Turku Conservatory. In 2025, the aim is to develop JazzCamp for Girls into a nationwide concept, expanding the camp activities from the current two cities to a total of six municipalities.

    Jazz Camp for Girls was launched in 2014 by JazzDanmark, our sister organisation in Denmark, in a bid to inspire young girls to get interested in jazz and improvised music. The gender balance in music, and jazz music in particular, has traditionally been strongly biased towards men, with women’s role in bands often limited to singing. The leading idea behind the Jazz Camp for Girls concept is to offer all camp participants an inspiring and safe environment to try different instruments, band playing and composing music.

    The girls’ jazz camp is designed for all girls and those identifying as girls. The camp is geared towards 8-12-year-olds, but the age guide is for reference only. The most important thing is to have a go at band playing and the willingness to learn new skills together.

    “There are more than ten of these camps organised every year in Denmark, and our long-term goal and dream is to emulate that wide reach in Finland as well. We need to use a range of different tools to correct the gender imbalance on the jazz music sector and across the entire music industry in general. Jazz Camp for Girls provides one effective tool to help us reach our goal.”
    Maria Silvennoinen, Executive Director, Finnish Jazz Federation

    “Since the start of Jazz Camp for Girls in Denmark, we have achieved so much knowledge and many good experiences that we’re looking forward to sharing with the other countries, who also experience a continuous unequal gender balance in the music industry. We have seen good results from the start of Jazz Camp for Girls in the U.K. in 2019, and we hope that our new partners will experience the same good results – both in terms of getting more girls to play an instrument, while also focusing on working towards a more equal gender balance.”
    Agnete Seerup, project manager, Jazz Camp for Girls at JazzDanmark

    The Jazz Camp for Girls Takes the North project is supported by the Nordic Culture Fund.

    More information about the project:

    Maria Silvennoinen
    Executive Director
    Finnish Jazz Federation
    maria.silvennoinen@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 50 536 7491

  • Along with eight other partner organisations from the Europe Jazz Network, Finnish Jazz Federation has joined forces to collaborate on a new talent development programme, Constellations, exchanging our artists with others in the international jazz community.

    Constellations is a new collaborative artist development exchange programme that reignites international ambitions of artists and partners in the wake of the pandemic. Constellations addresses creative and personal growth, along with recovery, wellbeing and environmental concerns, by enabling participants to meet new international peers and to participate in each other’s development programmes and networks.

    Artists and partners will visit and participate in a development programme or residency in another country, learning about local ecosystems, and joining working groups of musicians, creatives and other music professionals. All artists and partners will also partake in major jazz networking events such as jazzahead! and the Europe Jazz Conference. In short, Constellations will provide a stepping stone for our talent development artists who are ready to break into international networks.

    Constellations builds on a shared commitment to collaboration and to artists, laying foundations for a more connected and sustainable music scene across Europe. Through this programme, we’ll help to empower and expand the horizons of musicians across the globe.

    International partner organisations and their programmes:

    JazzLab / Stepping Stone (BE), Jazz Finland / Nordic Jazz Comets (FI), Association Jazzé Croisé  / Jazz Migration (FR), Stadtgarten Köln / NICA artist development (DL), Synthesizer (IL), I-Jazz / Nuova Generazione Jazz (IT), Powered by TINC / Stepping Stone (NL), Norsk jazzforum / Nordic Jazz Comets (NO), and of course Manchester Jazz Festival (mjf) / hothouse (GB).

    Participating artists 2023:

    Mattias de Craene (BE), Kaisa Maensivu (FI), Delphine Deau (FR), Pablo Gīw (DE), Ella Ronen (IL), Alessandra Bossa (IT), Frederike Berendsen (NL), Kjetil Mulelid (NO) and Lara Jones (GB).

    In 2023, Finnish Jazz Federation´s exchange partner was Powered by TINC / Stepping Stone (NL), as we welcomed artist and activist Frederike Berendsen to Nordic Jazz Comets/Finnish Jazz Federation, whilst one of our Nordic Jazz Comets artists from the previous years, basist Kaisa Mäensivu took up a residency in Italy.

    The pilot edition of Constellations ran until November 2023. The project partners are seeking additional funding for the project in 2024.

    Constellations pilot edition was funded by The European Union and supported by MusicAire under the Music Moves Europe programme.

    More information about the project:

    Maria Silvennoinen
    Executive Director
    Finnish Jazz Federation
    maria.silvennoinen@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 50 536 7491

  • Elma – a digital platform for sustainable development in the live music and other performing arts industry

    Elma, a digital data bank, planning tool and community platform, was launched in autumn 2020 to provide actors in the live music industry with information, tools and support in promoting sustainable development. The development of Elma continued during 2023–2024, when new content was published on the platform and most of the content was also translated into English. In addition, the contents were expanded to serve other performing arts as well.

    Key themes and contents of Elma

    LEARNING MATERIALS – a digital information and education package on sustainability in live music

    RESPONSIBILITY PROGRAM – a roadmap tool for building, monitoring and reporting on your own sustainability programme

    COMMUNITY – a forum for networking, interaction and knowledge sharing

    CO2 CALCULATOR – a tool for measuring and monitoring the carbon footprint of your activity (currently available only in Finnish)

    Elma is based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which cover all aspects of sustainable development.

    This development project is a joint operation between different Finnish live music organisations and builds on the groundwork already undertaken since 2020 through a scheme titled KEMUT – Sustainable music industry toolkit. The project’s co-collaborators include Finland Festivals, LiveFIN, Music Finland, Finnish Musicians’ Union, and the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras. The project is administered and coordinated by Jazz Finland.

    The Ministry for Education and Culture granted Finnish Jazz Federation 110,000 euros (2022) as part of the Ministry’s financial support for reshaping the cultural and creative sectors. This funding was allocated towards developing a digital sustainability platform, specifically designed for the music industry. The Finnish Jazz Federation was granted additional funding of 150,000 euros from the same financial instrument for further development of the platform for 2023–2024.

    More information about the project:

    Anu Ahola
    Project Manager
    anu.ahola@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 (0)50 569 0505

    Maria Silvennoinen
    Executive Director
    maria.silvennoinen@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 (0)50 5367491

  • In 2022-2023, Finnish Jazz Federation carried out a carbon neutral touring model project, which seeked to steer the organisation’s touring activities towards a more sustainable direction. The development project was delivered through a two-pronged approach: the carbon footprint of the Jazz Federation’s tours was measured, and an action plan was devised in order to move towards carbon neutral touring practices. In addition, as part of the overarching national scheme, Finnish live music industry’s environmental impacts were mapped in collaboration with other live music industry organisations.

    In autumn 2022, Finnish Jazz Federation expanded its regular touring program to include seven additional pilot tours which were designed to explore different ways of producing more sustainable jazz tours. The tours were carried out using a range of transport and production methods, with data and audience experiences collected throughout, as well as getting the word out about environmentally friendly choices in general. In 2023, building on the pilot tour data acquired, the organisation developed a roadmap towards a carbon neutral touring model. The project’s expert partners included environmental companies Puuni and Positive Impact.

    The different modes of transport during the pilot tour included the Jazz Federation’s tour bus, train, and electric car. One of the tour groups ventured outside of the regular touring circuits by stopping for a short-term residency in one of the locations and exploring the surrounding regions from there. Another tour group trialed a model of presenting school concerts and evening concerts as a combined performance in a bid to capture different audience groups in a single gathering and thus reducing the amount of transport required. There was a dedicated tour of coastal and archipelago regions while another tour group traveled to Sweden, enabling a comparison of emissions caused by air travel against lower-carbon ground transport modes. Under their international Jazz Finland brand, Finnish Jazz Federation has been developing sustainable touring practices since 2020 in collaboration with its Nordic partners.

    At concert venues, Finnish Jazz Federation facilitated more sustainable choices through the introduction of “green riders”. The riders – artists’ specification lists sent to gig venues in advance – included requests such as asking concert organisers to ensure local audiences are aware of public transport options to and from the venue, to adopt energy-saving measures, to reduce the amount of waste created, and to make vegan food options available to artists and audiences.

    Through this project, the Jazz Federation participated in the live music industry’s widespread sustainability efforts. The environmental effects of the whole country’s live music events were mapped in 2022 by the network KEMUT, a sustainable music industry toolkit, and administered by the Finnish Jazz Federation. The network is a collaboration between the sector’s umbrella organisations, including Finland Festivals, LiveFIN, Music Finland, the Finnish Musicians’ Union, and the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras.

    2023 saw the completion of an environmental roadmap for the Finnish live music sector. The roadmap describe live music’s current environmental effects, set common goals for the entire industry, and suggest an action plan towards a carbon-neutral sector.

    The carbon neutral touring model project was funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture.

    More information about the Finnish Jazz Federation’s (Jazz Finland’s) carbon neutral touring model project:

    Maria Silvennoinen
    Executive director
    Finnish Jazz Federation
    maria.silvennoinen@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 50 5367491

    More information on collaboration projects of the live music network KEMUT: www.kestavamusiikki.net

  • Nordic Jazz Comets is a collaboration platform administered by five Nordic jazz organisations: Finnish Jazz Federation, Svensk Jazz in Sweden, Norsk jazzforum in Norway, JazzDanmark in Denmark, and the FÍH Music School in Iceland.

    Their 2022-2023 NJC project, titled Dagsverke (“a day of charity work”) enabled Nordic jazz organisations, ten ensembles, and the network of Nordic jazz promoters to get to know some of the top jazz names of the future, as well as learning new ways to use music as a tool for social wellbeing.

    The first stage of the Dagsverke project brought a group of promoters and musicians to Copenhagen to attend concerts and workshops between 9-11 February 2022. Five Nordic ensembles performed for a full house at Copenhagen’s Jazzhus Montmartre. Finland was represented at the event by the Adele Sauros Quartet.

    As part of the event program, the participants learned about local community projects where music is used as a tool to advance social equality and human wellbeing. The members of the Adele Sauros Quartet and other Finnish event attendees got to know the organisation AntiDote, as well as participating in workshop activities led by Improv for Asylum Kids. AntiDote focuses on reducing drug user mortality rates through establishing supervised injection sites and educating the public about the use of naloxone spray in reversing opioid overdoses. AntiDote has been considering the benefits of bringing music to the injection sites and offering low-key concerts at the heaviest drug use areas. Workshops offered by Improv for Asylum Kids use improvisation as a tool to strengthen asylum seekers’ self-esteem as active learners and doers. A group of professional musicians have been working together to create physical movement methods and inclusive notation programs to help overcome the lack of a common language and the challenges rising from cultural sensitivities in communications.

    The next Dagsverke event took place in Sweden’s Stockholm and Gävle in 10-13 May 2023 as part of the Annual General Meeting get-together for Svensk Jazz, our Swedish equivalent. Ensembles and invited guests spent again the first day participating in workshops, followed by performing for industry professionals and local audiences on day two.

    Learn more about the project at www.nordicjazzcomets.com.

    You can download the final report for the Nordic Jazz Comets In The Key Of Green project at the same webpage. Alternatively, you can access the report directly by using this link: Link to Dropbox

    More information about the project:

    Valtteri Pokela
    Communications and Production coordinator
    Finnish Jazz Federation
    valtteri.pokela@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 44 5125578

  • On the Rails was a joint project between Finnish Jazz Federation and the Welsh folk music organisation Trac Cymru, forging new collaborations between two countries on the edge of Europe: Finland and the UK.

    This genre and border crossing endeavour seeked to create new relationships with jazz and folk concert organisers located along the railway in countries such as Germany, Belgium and France, as well as establishing enduring touring pathways in the UK for Finnish jazz ensembles.

    Funded by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, On the Rails looked to boost the competitiveness of Finnish and Welsh artists, taking advantage of existing responsibility skills and networks. The secondary goal was to increase the recognition of Finnish jazz professionals as project partners.

    Throughout 2022, Finnish Jazz Federation and Trac Cymru showcased environmentally friendly touring and concert practices alongisde music from their regions at jazz, folk and export events. Designed to create value-based collaborations, artist visits were hosted by industry professionals in small towns with active jazz and folk music scenes, all located along the railway in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and France.

    In 2023, the touring route was tested: a Finnish jazz ensemble traveled to Wales, playing concerts along the railway and getting to know local culture. The carbon footprint of the tour was measured, and all the data, experience, and contacts acquired are freely available for the entire Finnish jazz and folk sector.

    More information about the project:

    Maria Silvennoinen
    Executive Director
    Finnish Jazz Federation
    maria.silvennoinen@jazzfinland.fi
    tel. +358 50 5367491

    Danny KilBride
    Director
    trac: Music Traditions Wales / Traddodiadau Cerdd Cymru
    cyfarwyddydd@trac-cymru.org
    tel. +44 787 903 2130