MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL CHINA
“Where East Meets West”
Founders
Ernst-Jan Tolen
陶安然
As a Dutchman who grew up, lived and worked in Zurich, Switzerland and in Hong Kong, Ernst-Jan has over 25 years of international broad leadership, project management, business development and human resources experience. His intercultural competence helps him to connect west and east, and he greatly enjoys bringing together Chinese and European cultures.
Joyce Peng Peng
齊芃芃
Joyce is a Beijing-born Canadian who has lived in Hong Kong for 20 years. With her 15 years’ involvement in the jazz scene in Hong Kong and as a renowned music event organizer, she is an important driver and contributor. She is also an award-winning interior designer with a history of working in the building materials industry.
The first edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival China will take place in Hangzhou, in the province of Zhejiang. This new Festival license will offer an eclectic program on the theme “When West Meets East”, combining Chinese and Asian music and of course jazz, which has been enjoying a new lease of life in the country in recent years. This new partnership pursues the Montreux Jazz Festival’s desire to forge links with other continents and to mix different musical cultures.
Blending western and eastern history as well as merging western and eastern culture, the event will offer a unique mix of tradition, innovation and digital transformation, resulting in a new interpretation of a live jazz music festival. It will have a new identity and a clear vision to accomplish the grand mission to consolidate the Montreux Jazz Festival as a major “must attend” event in China. Furthermore, international brands will be energized by eastern vitality. We will build a new community in Hangzhou, a new ecosystem, using music as a link to bring the new Hangzhou and China to the world and the world to Hangzhou.
It started with HIEC Jazz-on-the-Lake, the previous festival and first international live Jazz Music Festival in Hangzhou, which took place November 9 and 10, 2019, and was very well received. The organizing committee of the 19th Asian Games 2022 (September 10 to 25 in Hangzhou) has been officially promoting HIEC Jazz-on-the-Lake 2019 on their website. They will continue to do so and are happy to work together with us in the future. One month after the first festival, HIEC Jazz-on-the-Lake 2019 has been awarded by the Hangzhou Identity Promotion Association as the “Event of the Year”, against the competition of hundreds of other candidates.