The successful two-year partnership between the Social Service of Commerce of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Sesc-RJ) and Rio das Ostras Jazz e Blues, the largest Jazz and blues in Latin America, led Sesc to hold, for the first time, the Sesc Jazz & Blues Circuit, which will promote more than 90 shows with more than 30 musicians, in five cities in Rio de Janeiro, starting on the 13th. The circuit will start in the municipality of Armação dos Búzios, passing through Paraty, Rio das Ostras, Niterói and Barra do Piraí. The shows are completely free.
The objective is to stimulate public interest in high quality music, in addition to forming an audience and creating opportunities for the public to watch in loco some of the biggest names in Jazz, blues and international and national instrumental music, as well as meeting new local talent bands.
In Armação dos Búzios, the Sesc Jazz & Blues Circuit will open on the 13th of this month, encompassing ten shows which will bring together, in the Ossos and Santos Dumont squares, names such as the American saxophonist Sax Gordon Beadle & Just Groove, Léo Gandelman, Tony Gordon, Nico Rezende, Wagner Tiso, Victor Biglione, among other attractions.
The Búzios Jazz & Blues Festival will have environmental, social and cultural actions to meet the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals, selective waste collection, zero carbon emissions, free music workshops and tree planting, that are already carried out in Rio das Ostras and that will now be extended to other municipalities. The information was released to Brazil Agency by Stenio Mattos, producer of the event in Rio das Ostras and responsible for organizing the Circuit. The Rio das Ostras festival is in its 18th edition.
According to Mattos, the Rio das Ostras festival last year was one of the best he’s ever seen. “It was a reunion since the beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic. Everything went well in that test event, after the relaxation of measures to contain the spread of the disease. The audience behaving, keeping the spacing. There were 8 thousand people, without a single problem, without lines, the musicians crying on stage, emotional”. Not only the members of the production, but the public, on average of a thousand people per day, were tested daily. The producer informed that, in the end, only three cases of covid-19 were diagnosed and followed up by the health authorities, but they did not go to the hospital. The success of the venture led Sesc to decide to make a circuit of Jazz and bluescovering a greater number of cities, indicated Mattos.
Inclusion
Stenio Mattos reinforced that the festival has the fundamental objective of promoting the social and cultural inclusion of the population, in addition to moving the municipal economy. The Rio das Ostras festival also offers accessibility on all stages for people with disabilities and has selective garbage collection. The event seeks to be carbon neutral, quantifying all greenhouse gas emissions generated in the period and offsetting them with the planting of thousands of seedlings of native trees in the municipality’s environmental preservation areas. In economic terms, the event moves tourism and hotels and injects, on average, around R$ 9 million into the city’s economy.
Mattos also pointed out that the free workshops on luteria, that is, on the construction of musical instruments, promoted in Rio das Ostras, together with the municipal secretariats of Education and Culture, will also be developed in other municipalities. “It is a very cool project, which takes place throughout the year, with students from public schools”. The instruments made are sold at the end of the festival. “Each city will give a space, in which the luteria will be built. It is a course for public school students”, said the cultural producer.
Next, Paraty, between the 10th and 12th of June; and Rio das Ostras, on the Holiday of Corpus Christi, from the 16th to the 19th of June. In Niterói, metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, the Circuito Sesc de Jazz and Blues will arrive on the 24th, 25th and 26th of June, ending in Barra do Piraí, which will hold the event between the 15th and 17th of July. The Sesc Circuit Jazz & Blues it has support from the state government, through the state departments of Culture and Tourism.
