Jazz fest losing artistic director
Guelph festival on solid footing despite recent challenges
The Guelph Jazz Festival, which is losing its founding artistic director after its 23rd annual run next month, plans to shake up its board of directors before seeking a replacement for Ajay Heble.
“In fact, the festival is going to be continuing,” said festival president Shawn Van Sluys. “It’s going to continue with its mandate and with its artistic vision in the same vein as what Ajay has established over the past 23 years.”
Heble’s retirement “really from our perspective gives us an opportunity for a kind of board renewal and for a renewal of the artistic leadership,” said Van Sluys.
“So the plan is that just before the festival in September, we’re going to announce what that board renewal will look like, and that will take effect immediately after the festival. And then sometime in the new year, the posting for the artistic director will take place,” he said.
Van Sluys was responding to a query seeking his reaction to rumblings in the community that some Guelph Jazz Festival board members might be thinking the festival doesn’t have a future without Heble, so they might leave the board.
Changes in the Guelph Jazz Festival organization come at a challenging time for some of the city’s highly-regarded arts festivals.
The Guelph Dance Festival, which held its 18th annual fete in early June, hired a new general manager last year as part of a big restructuring of its staff. This year, it tried some new things, including holding a couple of performances at the University of Guelph and in a south-end park, in a bid to draw a bigger audience.
The Hillside Festival, which saw ticket sales for its annual three-day summer event at Guelph Lake Island decline dramatically over the past two years, announced last month that it is switching next year to an earlier weekend in July, in order to reduce competition from a huge festival north of Barrie that started in 2015. The 34th annual Hillside Festival will be held on the July 14 to 16 weekend next year, two weeks earlier than usual and two weeks before next year’s WayHome Music and Arts festival near Barrie.
Over the past year, the Hillside Festival made another significant change as it followed the lead of the Guelph Jazz Festival and the Guelph Dance Festival in becoming a federally registered charity.
These three festivals, along with the Guelph Film Festival (set for Nov. 3 to 6) and the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival (set for Sept. 15 to 18), banded together for mutual support and joint marketing purposes a few years ago as the Guelph Fab 5.
The main offering of the 28th annual Eden Mills Writers’ Festival is its Sunday afternoon event, which for the first time in a few years will be on the same day as the final day of the Guelph Jazz Festival this year. However, the jazz festival’s final concert starts at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, allowing people to go to both events that day.
The Guelph Jazz Festival, which is unusual for its nonmainstream focus and also for its inclusion of an annual academic colloquium, draws devoted fans from many parts of the world to Guelph. It describes itself as “a singular organization earning critical international acclaim for presenting innovative jazz and creative improvised music in a community setting.”
Set for Sept. 14 to 18, the jazz festival will include both ticketed and free concerts, with many hours of free entertainment on the Friday evening and all day Saturday in the area in front of city hall. These outdoor concerts, known as Jazz at Market Square, are usually more accessible for casual jazz fans than some of the ticketed events.
“Of course, it has been something of a bittersweet decision for me to decide to step down from the festival, but I know that this year’s event will be a joyous community celebration.”