jazzahead! Prepares for 20th Annual Conference

By Sebastian Scotney I Jan. 6, 2026

Vocalist Tyreek McDole performs during last year’s jazzahead!
(Photo: M3B/Jens Schlenker)

From its humble beginnings in 2006, jazzahead! has developed into the world’s leading international trade fair, talent showcase, festival and conference dedicated to jazz. Here’s a look at the event has blossomed and what to expect when it celebrates its 20th anniversary April 22–25 in Bremen, Germany.

How did jazzahead! in the North German city of Bremen evolve from a small jazz trade fair in 2006, with fewer than 100 exhibitors from Germany and Austria, into the world’s largest gathering for the jazz industry and community?

From those tentative beginnings, jazzahead!’s combination of a trade fair, a conference and a showcase festival has progressively grown in scale, confidence, expertise and ambition.

Despite its increase in scale, the feel of a community is palpable. To some extent, jazzahead! markets itself as a “family gathering.” “There’s a positive spirit about jazzahead! that is empowering,” says broadcaster and journalist Arne Schumacher, who started off as a skeptic, but has attended every edition and been progressively won over.

In the early years, there was no shortage of doomsayers ready to predict jazzahead!’s demise, especially after the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) went down in flames in 2008. But in the years since, the organizers have found both their niche and their stride.

Bremen has the distinction of being the smallest of Germany’s 16 states. There are surely flashier and grander cities around, like Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, less than an hour away by train. Or, as has been actively proposed, wouldn’t jazzahead! be better off putting down its roots in one of the cities with a significant jazz scene and/or a major conservatoire, such as Berlin or Cologne?

Such suggestions receive a curt “no” from Hans Peter Schneider, the wily head of M3B, the parent company of Messe Bremen, the leader who set the whole jazzahead! vision in motion. In a recent interview, he quipped, “The winners of the league aren’t the ones with the biggest stadiums, but those with the best teams.”

In fact, Bremen being a smaller metropolis actively helps. As Katherine McVicker of Music Works International, a stalwart of the event since its early days, says, “The city doesn’t take the people away from the conference.” Smaller cities do tend to be more appreciative when they can host international events. As Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte said in a speech, for Bremen, jazzahead! is “an event with immense international prestige, a shining jewel.”

The “best team” that Schneider oversees has been marshaled by Sybille Kornitschky since the venture started. Bremen-born, Kornitschky studied and worked abroad in France and the U.K. She returned to Bremen in 2002 and joined the staff of Messe Bremen. “I knew that I had a major wish to get something going in Bremen,” she remembers, “and also something with an international dimension.” Kornitschky was given the role of getting the venture off the ground. Rather quaintly, she kept her original title of “project leader” for more than a decade. That job description might have sounded transitory, but her track record in steadily building the event to its current scale has been lauded by attendees, and the jazz community, as a remarkable achievement.

In the early stages, Kornitschky, who admits to having started as an outsider in the jazz world, worked with two local figures, both with influential networks in European jazz — Peter Schulze, a broadcaster at Radio Bremen who at the time was the artistic director of Jazzfest Berlin; and trumpeter/bandleader Uli Beckerhoff. In order to build some notoriety and to win local support, jazzhead! in its early days invited well-known international bands and awarded an annual prize sponsored by car manufacturer Škoda. That prize ended in 2014, but it helped the event gain attention.

An important development of the past few years has been the arrival of Hamburg-based music journalist, author and radio/TV presenter Götz Bühler. His appointment as artistic advisor was announced in early 2023, and he has been in post since the retirement of Peter Schulze and Uli Beckerhoff at the end of that year’s edition.

Bühler had attended jazzahead! “as a participant, as an exhibitor, but basically an outsider,” he says. He adds that it has been fascinating to have his eyes opened to the complexity of the operation and its year-long build-up, as seen from the inside.

A strong principle of the event is the role jazzahead! can play in helping musicians build reputations and make connections. “We want to make sure that musicians will both have performance and networking opportunities,” says Bühler.

That goal is something senior figures on the German scene recognize. As Dr. Anke Steinbeck of the Deutscher Musikrat and Bundesjugendjazzorchester says: “For young musicians in particular, jazzahead! is like a ‘backstage pass’ to the real world of music: the entire industry is there — live, loud and unfiltered.”

Being a truly international event serves as another area fundamental to the vision is the organizers. The goal is to offer as many countries as possible a visible presence at the fair. And the value has delivered results with promoters and managers hearing showcase artists and taking instant action to book or sign them.

The most obvious expression of the event’s international identity is the Partner Country program, which has been running since 2011, whereby countries sponsor in order to increase opportunities for their artists and local scenes. Each year jazzahead! features a different Partner Country to focus on. To date, Turkey, Spain, Israel, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Finland, Poland, Norway, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands have served as Partner Countries. For the 2026 edition, Sweden will be the focus.

When it comes to who should attend, the answer is clear: anyone involved in the business of jazz and hopes to make a career in this music. It’s a place to be noticed, inspired and recharged. As jazzahead!’s Schumacher says, “You spend three days in a safe space, a kind of bubble where everybody hugs … and then you go back out there into the real rough world outside.” DB