The 24th International Ankara Jazz Festival will be held online within the scope of new measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Preparations for the festival, scheduled for April 30 to May 10, have been completed, a statement from the Jazz Association said. The concerts at the festival, which will feature a total of 18 events, will be broadcast live online.

This year's theme was chosen at the end of a three-month study with the cooperation of Başkent University’s Department of Communication and Graphic Design, the statement said, saying that all the works will be available in digital formats as well.

Jazz Association Head and Festival Curator Özlem Oktar Varoğlu underlined that jazz is a free and democratic form of art.

Varoğlu emphasized that jazz musicians contribute to music individually and freely on the stage and that they all make their voices heard equally by opening space for each other, adding: “Art is a reflection of society. In this respect, we have chosen ‘freedom and democracy in jazz’ as our theme, and we wanted to look at the art from this point of view, accompanied by valuable orchestras in the 24th year of the festival.”

Festival Director Tuğçe Alpaslan stated that festival projects have been determined, but they needed a little more time to announce the program due to the developments related to the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to Alpaslan, the program will be released on ankaracazfestivali.com and cazdernegi.org as soon as possible. “As scheduled, the festival will open with a concert on World Jazz Day on April 30 in collaboration with the Jazz Association, UNESCO and the Herbie Hancock Jazz Institute. The announcement about the concert will be released in our next press release,” she added.