The National Jazz Festival is New Zealand's longest-running music festival and one of the most significant jazz events in the Southern Hemisphere, held annually over Easter weekend in Tauranga. Now in its seventh decade, it brings together New Zealand and international jazz artists for a long weekend of concerts, workshops, jam sessions and street performances that fill the city with music and draw audiences from across the country.
The festival has an extraordinary history — founded in 1967, it has weathered the changing fortunes of jazz as a popular music form and emerged as a genuinely beloved institution, celebrated as much for its community spirit and warm atmosphere as for the quality of its musical programming. Over the decades it has hosted some of the world's great jazz musicians alongside the finest New Zealand talent, maintaining a programme that ranges from traditional jazz to contemporary fusion and improvised music.
For jazz lovers and curious music fans alike, the Tauranga National Jazz Festival is one of those events that delivers more than expected. The Easter timing, the Bay of Plenty sunshine, the mix of ticketed shows and free street performances and the genuine passion of the musicians and audiences who gather each year make it one of New Zealand's most rewarding annual music experiences.