The festival reaches its halfway point with the main attraction, the Metropole Orkest & Kandace Springs

• The Dutch ensemble will stage two concerts -Theatre Cuyás & Tenerife Auditorium- conducted by Miho Hazama
• The weekend will also feature concerts on the streets of Santa Brígida, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Los Llanos de Aridane & El Pinar
• Lehmann Brothers, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado, Daïda and Lucas Santana with Sven Rozier complete the programme

Islas Canarias, 13 de julio de 2023. This weekend the Festival Internacional Canarias Jazz & Más will feature one of the most important ensembles of the genre, the Metropole Orkest (MO), a symphonic formation from the Netherlands and considered as the most important jazz orchestra in the world. With four Grammy awards and a career path featuring collaborations with some of the greatest artists of contemporary music, the MO comes to the Canary Islands for the first time to offer, together with the American singer Kandace Springs, two concerts on the islands: on Saturday 15, at 19.00 hours at the Theatre Cuyás (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria);and on Sunday 16, at 20.30 hours at the Tenerife Auditorium. Both concerts have the collaboration of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Spain. The rest of this third weekend’s programme of the festival will feature performances by Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado, Daïda, Lehmanns Brothers, Lucas Santana with Sven Rozier, Yul Ballesteros Trío, Vanessa Hechavarría Quartet & Alba Serrano & Cristóbal Montesdeoca Dúo, concerts which will be staged in Tenerife, Gran Canaria, La Palma & El Hierro.

The Metropole Orkest and Kandace Springs get together once again on the occasion of their presence at the 32^nd Festival Internacional Canarias Jazz & Más, (Theatre Cuyás, Saturday 15 July, Tenerife Auditorium, Sunday 16 July). Conducted by Miho Hazama, they will feature usual pieces from the repertoire of Kandace Springs, artist born in Nashville into a family closely linked to music. She grew up listening to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack & Norah Jones. Those musical heroes helped her to find her own sound and shaped her into to the artist she now is. Prince heard her cover of Sam Smith’s ‘Stay with me’ and invited her to perform with him at Paisley Park for the 30^th anniversary of ‘Purple Rain’. Shortly after that, she was mentored in the studio by Sam Smith and released her debut album ‘Soul Eyes’. It received excellent reviews, with the ‘Times’ of London enthusing, “Kandace Springs isn’t just a star. She’s an entire galaxy”. Since then, she has released more albums, duetted with Norah Jones, played at festivals such as North Sea Jazz Festival and Montery Jazz Festival and won the Deutcher Jazzpreis for Best Vocal Album.

Kandace will share the stage with Metropole Orkest (MO) and permanent guest conductor Miho Hazama. The Metropole Orkest, that play jazz, pop, world music and film scores, have shared the stage with legends such as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pat Metheny, Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, The Basement Jaxx and Bono. The MO has also paricipated in productions by the new generation of stars, like Kovacs, Robert Glasper, Snarky Puppy, Jacob Collier, Gregory Porter, Cory Henry & Louis Cole. The orchestra has worked in four winning productions of the Grammy Awards, the most recent being the recording of ‘All Night Long’, by Jacob Collier.

The public square – Plaza Ciudad (Tenerife Auditorium) will host two nights of free entrance open-air concerts. The festival recovers this venue to offer on Friday the concerts featuring Lehmann Brothers & Lucas Santana with Sven Rozier (20.30 hours on Friday 14); and Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado and Daïda (Saturday 15, at 20.30 hours. The programme in the Tenerife capital is completed with the concert at the Café Teatro La Rayuela featuring the Vanessa Hechavarría Quartet (Friday 14, at 23.00 hours).

In Gran Canaria, the festival will fulfill the tradition of visiting the municipality of Santa Brígida, one of the public squares where this festival began more than 30 years ago and which will host in its Municipal Park the performances of Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado & Daïda starting at 20.30 hours. On Sunday the festival will return to La Fábrica for the presentation of the album featuring the voice of Alba Serrano y Cristóbal Montesdeoca on piano, at a concert that will also start at 20.30 hours.

This weekend the festival also goes to the islands of El Hierro, more specifically in the municipality of El Pinar (Cultural Centre “Luis Martín Arvelo”, 20.30 hours), featuring the performance of the Yul Ballesteros Trío; while in the island of La Palma, the concerts return to the public square – Plaza España, with a double programme featuring Lehmann Brothers & Lucas Santana with Sven Rozier (20.30 hours). Free entrance in both cases.