2026衛武營爵士週

Jazz is a language in motion: shaped by New Orleans’ formative cultural roots, carried through Latin rhythm and European classical traditions, and continually rewritten in contemporary city life. Across three days, hear that conversation unfold through tango, Cuban-inflected horn jazz, and saxophone-led urban storytelling.

This is a programme for close listeners and curious first-timers alike. Follow the groove, the improvisation, and the cultural memory inside each performance—then make space for the dialogue that happens when musicians and audiences meet in the room.

Three routes into the music

From Barrio Hipódromo to Kaohsiung

Argentine-Taiwanese musician MUSA 明馬丁 leads a journey from Barrio Hipódromo—the La Plata neighbourhood where he grew up—toward Kaohsiung. Tango moves beyond its familiar dance image here, alongside milonga and samba rhythms connected to African traditions. The result is a living exchange of place, ancestry, rhythm, and connection.

Freedom in the horn

Cuban-born Arturo Sandoval, a ten-time Grammy Award winner and Dizzy Gillespie protégé, arrives with a nonet for 《自由之聲》. His trumpet-led music brings Cuban street energy into dialogue with classical detail and rock intensity. Expect the scale and colour of a large ensemble, driven by a belief in jazz as a practice of freedom.

The city, told through saxophone

Ruby Pan 潘子爵 brings 《沒問題少女》 to Kaohsiung with invited collaborator Kaori Kobayashi 小林香織. With saxophone as narrator, the project traces urban women’s negotiations with social frameworks, relationships, struggle, and reconciliation. It is contemporary jazz-fusion with emotional specificity: intimate in its observations, expansive in its sound.

Festival programme

September 18, 2026

September 19, 2026

September 20, 2026

Where the rhythms meet

From September 18–20, bring your ears to the meeting point: Latin roots, Cuban brass, contemporary urban feeling, and the open possibility of improvisation.