Jazz Festivals Canada is a not-for-profit National Arts Service Organization with a mandate to “represent the interests and act as advocate for the development of Canadian jazz festivals and jazz presenters.”
Jazz Festivals Canada (JFC) is a member driven organization. The board is comprised of the Executive and Artistic Directors of the leading jazz festival organizations in the country. The constituent organizations are leaders in their local and regional arts communities with vast professional arts experience, myriad relationships throughout the national and international arts world, and an unwavering commitment to the advancement of the art form. The JFC board is a group of extremely talented and enterprising individuals who have in many cases pioneered the business of jazz festival presentation in Canada. The board of directors is selected to reflect a regional balance and representation.
The JFC network is a professional community of Artistic Directors, producers, marketing and communications professionals, fundraisers and administrators. JFC activity directly addresses the needs of the jazz presenting community in Canada and those needs drive the work of the organization.
JFC has an extremely broad reach. The network brings together a wide range of presenters, from the largest and most well established festivals in the country to small volunteer run events presented in remote communities. The networking initiatives of JFC support festival producers in presenting world-class events that reach record numbers of audience members each year. Over the course of the network’s history, festivals across the country have been strongly supported in achieving sustainable growth for their organizations, enabling them to present increasingly sophisticated and well-produced festivals which benefit each of their respective communities. This activity greatly enhances the quality of cultural events that take place in communities from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia.
In one calendar year the combined membership of JFC spends in excess of 7 million dollars on artist fees, employing over 9,000 artists. JFC member events present over 2,000 concerts per year, collectively reaching 3,300,000 audience members. 900 of these concerts are presented free to the public each year.
Artists and audiences are the ultimate beneficiaries of the work undertaken by the national jazz network. As an association of professional not-for-profit arts presenters we take great pride in bringing exceptional artistic experiences to communities across Canada while providing a livelihood for jazz musicians and supporting the important work that they are doing to contribute to the evolution of the art form itself.
