‘Kick-ass’ jazz festival to scale new heights

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Featuring an array of local, national and international talent, the Galway Jazz Festival will run from Thursday, October 6, to  Sunday, October 8 in venues across Galway City, from the rarefied Mick Lally Theatre to the clubby hub that is Electric.

Artistic director Matthew Berrill takes some time to talk about what is, in some ways, a labour of love for those involved.

“We were quite prepared this year, relatively speaking, in getting the programming done,” he says. “Even without funding guaranteed, before funding answers had come back to us. We said ‘we’re going to do the festival by hook or by crook’.”

Matthew and Ciaran Ryan were integral in securing international artists like Christian Wallumrod. But given that both of them are working musicians in their own right, putting a four-day festival together must be challenging?

“It is a challenge, but it’s a fun one,” Matthew says. “There’s more than Ciaran and me – there’s Aengus Hackett, a great local guitarist, and Maeve Bryan. So there’s good team there. We’re not doing it for the money — there’s no money in it, really. It’s just to present a kick-ass jazz festival in Galway.”

GJF is now in its eleventh year, having been founded by Fidelma Mullane and Damien Evans. Funding has always been a challenge, and last year’s festival was a one-day event, what Matthew called ‘a stop gap’. But,  after a successful FundIt campaign and funding from many of the leading lights in Galway’s food and hospitality sector, the festival is set to thrive.

“This year’s is the most comprehensive one yet,” Matthew says.

Christian Wallumrod and his ensemble play the Mick Lally Theatre on Sunday, October 9, and is Matthew is a big fan of the Norwegian pianist.

“He’s got a particular Nordic sound, which is quite  well-known in the jazz world,” Matthew says. “It can be subtle, it’s not necessarily in your face. I heard him before, Music For Galway brought him and his ensemble here. Me and my brother Peter heard him, and he was just amazing.

“It’s very representative of creative, European jazz. It’s not one hundred miles an hour, in your face – there’s subtleties involved. They’re doing an acoustic concert in the Druid . The venue influenced that.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.