Cunard has announced its sponsorship of the 58th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival’ Jazz Legends Gala honoring Chick Corea on September 17, 2015. The longest continuously-running jazz festival in the world, the 58th Monterey Jazz Festival takes place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, Calif., September 18-20.
This year marks Cunard’s first partnership with the festival, illuminating Cunard’s remarkable history of hosting musicians such as jazz icons Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, and highlighting the company’s renowned on board entertainment and music offerings including current partnerships with the prestigious Juilliard School of Jazz, and venerable Blue Note Records.

Being showcased at this year’s festival is Cunard’s “Jazz at Sea” partnership with Blue Note Records.

The first Blue Note Crossing on Queen Mary 2 will sail from New York to Southampton on October 29, 2015, featuring intimate jazz performances by musicians such as Grammy Award winners Natalie Cole, Robert Glasper and Derek Hodge.

President of Blue Note Records, Don Was, will also sail and participate in Q&A sessions.

Blue Note musicians will similarly be featured on Queen Mary 2 during Transatlantic Crossings on August 1 and October 26, 2016. 
 


“We are excited to participate in this year’s Monterey Jazz Festival Gala, the festival’s flagship fundraising event for its educational programs, which impact 3,000 local, regional and national students each year,” says Richard Meadows, president, Cunard, North America.

“This is the type of partnership which exemplifies the spirit of Cunard.”  
 


From its inception in 1958, the nonprofit Monterey Jazz Festival has presented iconic artists such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Dave Brubeck, Tony Bennett, and Miles Davis. Today, the Monterey Jazz Festival includes eight stages and over 110 events with some of the top names of contemporary jazz.

The 2015 lineup features the festival’s Artist-In-Residence, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, renowned pianist and composer and festival Showcase Artist Chick Corea, and Blue Note Records trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire, the festival’s Commission Artist.

Held annually on the 20-acre, oak-studded Monterey Fairgrounds, this festival is an inspiration and model for music festivals around the world. Committed to changing lives through music, Monterey Jazz Festival annually invests over half a mission dollars to provide comprehensive year-round education with the best jazz musicians and music educators available. Through instruction and performance. Monterey Jazz Festival Jazz Education programmes help to fill the gap of our schools’ declining music programmes, provide extensive performance opportunities, and inspire the next generation of jazz musicians.