Through their talent for creation and improvisation and their vibrant personalities, live jazz musicians bring improvised music to life and share it with an ever more diverse audience.
BNP Paribas provides support to these musicians for recording albums, promoting and broadcasting concerts and organising tours to help them both to expand their existing audiences and to reach new ones.
The Martial Solal International Jazz Piano Competition, a Prestigious Springboard to Success
This competition has become a touchstone for jazz pianists throughout the world, thanks to the participation of Martial Solal, an exceptional musician. Many musicians have been discovered as a result performing in this competition, and are now playing in the big leagues.
Among these success stories are the Ukrainian Vadim Neselovskyi, the very young winner of the 2010 contest, the Frenchmen Manuel Rocheman and Baptiste Trotignon, as well as the Armenian Tigran Hamasyan. All four of these musicians are receiving support from the BNP Paribas Foundation for their individual musical projects.
The Foundation, which supports the Martial Solal International Jazz Piano Competition, is helping to raise the profiles of these winners at the major festivals that it sponsors (Piano aux Jacobins, Lille Piano(s) Festival, Jazz in Saint Germain des-Prés, Esprit du Piano and Saint-Louis Jazz in Senegal).
Jazz in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and North Sea Jazz: Two Benchmark Festivals
Created 35 years ago, the North Sea Jazz Festival is one of the biggest jazz festivals in the world. Held in Rotterdam in 2011, it brought together a number of internationally renowned artists such as BB King, Paul Simon, Natalie Cole, Michel Portal and Prince.
Hundreds of thousands of spectators enjoyed three days of jazz concerts where the, past, present and future merged. BNP Paribas Netherlands and the BNP Paribas Foundation have been proud sponsors of this festival since July 2011.
In addition to sponsoring the event, BNP Paribas has agreed to support the “North Sea Jazz for Kids” festival and the "Paul Acket Awards”. These efforts are aimed at introducing jazz to young people and encouraging developing artists.
In addition, the BNP Paribas Foundation is sponsoring the Festival Jazz à Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris (France), which celebrated its eleventh annual event in May 2011. Since 2009, the two partners have been united by a common desire to encourage the introduction of jazz to a wider audience and increasing exchanges between jazz artists from different cultures.
