For the third time ever, the Adelaide Jazz Festival will be sprawling across the City of Adelaide in spectacular and swanky fashion. The world-renowned festival celebrates all things jazz, and showcases the abundance of jazzy talent that we are lucky to have here in South Australia.
This year the AJF will take place from April 24th to May 2nd (which will see it being able to celebrate International Jazz Day on April 30th), and boasts an extended program to mark Adelaide’s tenth anniversary as a UNESCO City of Music.
Music-lovers with a particular passion for jazz should definitely acquaint themselves with this year’s program – there are truly some exceptional things in the works.
This year will see a special UNESCO International Jazz Day Concert brought to lucky audiences at the Dunstan Playhouse by the Adelaide Festival Centre and Nexus Arts. Headlining act Zela Margossian Quintet, who blend Armenian traditional music with contemporary jazz, are sure to be unmissable.
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The night will also feature a performance from Ciara Louise Ferguson, the 2024 COMA Emerging Jazz Writer’s Award recipient, showing off her signature ethereal, folky vocal jazz.
And to top it all off, the evening will premiere the Jazz Relay Composition, written by acclaimed South Australian composer Mark Ferguson and performed by Adelaide Edition, in collaboration with Adelaide City of Music and the Elder Conservatorium.
In general, the 2025 program boasts a diverse, eclectic range of jazz-focused events. For arthouse cinema lovers, experimental outfit DJAWBREAKER will be performing new and original music built inspired by the surrealist world of the late film-making visionary David Lynch. For those who want something a little more traditional, a whole range of accomplished, honey-voiced vocalists will be performing standards at La Louisiane, the French-inspired restaurant and bar.
And for those looking for a bit of everything, the City of Adelaide presents Jazz in the Square, a free showcase of music from the Victoria Katsoulis Quintet, the Daniel Isler Quintet, and The Collective: Adelaide Jazz Supergroup at Mukata/Hindmarsh Square
View the full program for the Adelaide Jazz Festival here.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its
arts funding and advisory body
