We are what we see, what we think, what we read and what we hear.

Over these four decades, Jazz em Agosto has been the result of the sum of all the musicians who have visited us, their projects, their proposals, their messages and their creativity.

The 40th edition will not be a commemorative edition, but rather another part to be added to the whole, bringing together in the festival space the musical choices that we considered to be the most striking, challenging and less conventional in jazz and creative music in the present time.

The sum of all these parts is our legacy, our Manifesto, in which the next step will always endeavour to be more disruptive than the previous one or simply different, only made possible by the constant search for these exceptional musicians.

From the role of Mahalia Jackson as a civil rights activist, remembered here by James Brandon Lewis’ quintet, to the celebration of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” in a version for two pianos by Sylvie Courvoisier and Cory Smythe, the evocation of the Fluxus movement in Darius Jones’ project, the creation of a manifesto for the Beatnik movement by Dieb 13, or through the reinvention of Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, there are several intersections of the past with the present in this Jazz em Agosto.

Just like us, these musicians know that we must understand the past well, filter out the best it has left us, and reject simplistic solutions and the superfluous, only then will we be able to move towards a more ambitious future.

From 1 to 11 August, with 17 concerts spread across the Open-Air Amphitheatre, the Grand Auditorium and Auditorium 2, giving stage to large and small ensembles, always guided by the pleasure of discovery, we will be here. With undisguised pride in the past, but with Jazz em Agosto inviting us to a party that celebrates the present.