was one of the ideas. The second one was to create a platform
for our local musicians making lovely music but have no one
to support them. We wanted to build a property for this.
Has the government been supportive in your initiative?
perform even during heavy rains. Some were so disappointed
that we had to cut their sets shorter.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to
organize a festival like this?
Jazz festival is something that they don’t understand. I want
Colombo to be like Singapore or Dubai where the government
invests in such festivals. I remember attending Dubai Jazz
festival in 2002, the 2nd edition that had only 1000 people and
4 bands. The same festival, last year they had 68000 people.
Colombo is a beautiful place and we also have India close by
and lot of jazz enthusiasts. It is growing! Please don’t! (Laughs) You need to have passion for sure and
not look only at the money. If you want to get into it, you must
enjoy each and every phase of it. It’s all worth it!
Your future plans for this festival Do you visit festivals like this in other countries?
I want this to continue growing the way we are. We are
looking at coming up with multiple locations next year.
We want to move some of the elements. I want people to get
exposed to such festivals and enjoy what Colombo has to offer.
I want to elevate the local musicians through this. We want
people from India, Middle East to fly down for this. We want
to get great acts like George Benson next year.
What is the most treasured memory you have after the
whole planning?
My team, sound guys, stage, everyone put in a lot of effort to
make this happen. Artists were really flexible and out there to
On a scale of 1 to 5, rate this event.
Id’ like to explain why I’m rating this. Since we couldn’t carry
out a lot of planned things due to heavy rain, I would rate it 3!
I have visited Java Jazz Festival, Singapore and Dubai Jazz
Festival. I want to do Montreal Jazz Festival.
What do you think will make this festival better next year?
With the help of the tourist board and the government, I want
to change things around. We have a 28 acres park with old
trees and so on with an amphitheatre. I want to do it there, if
I can pull it off. I would like to have smaller acts perform in
the day and bigger ones at night. It must be one whole week
for the city to go jazz. We would like small restaurants having
small gigs and then organize packages to the airlines and
want people to come and experience this for a whole week.
The
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