February 16-March 3, join us for a spectacular and timely edition of the San Jose Jazz Winter Fest, co-curated with the Am I Jazz? Festival of Kyiv, Ukraine. 

Both Am I Jazz? and San Jose Jazz are leading edge music programmers that have garnered international acclaim for innovative and groundbreaking performances. Our 2023 edition, Winter Fest: Counterpoint With Ukraine continues this legacy forward with first-time-ever collaborations featuring musicians from the United States, Ukraine, and beyond.

This year's program includes 2023 Grammy-award nominees Jazzmeia Horn, Ambrose Akinmansure, and Rafiq Bhatia, along with acclaimed Ukrainian musicians Vadim Neselovski, Dennis Adu, and Olesya Zdorovetska among a dozen other performances at venues in Downtown San Jose and Santa Clara. Performances and events at the SJZ Break Room venue will be live-streamed, free, to international audiences.

In addition to music performances, this year's Fest is a multidisciplinary endeavor including dance, contemporary art and independent film. Both San Jose Jazz and the Am I Jazz? Festival are thrilled to bring this programming to you.

Olga Bekenshtein is a music curator, arts administrator and DJ from Luhansk/Kyiv, Ukraine. She has been the founder of Am I Jazz? festival, a co-founder of the non-profit organization OK Projects and part of the team that runs the club/art center Closer in Kyiv with its electronic music festivals Strichka and Brave! Factory, the largest and most internationally-recognized in Ukraine. Her curatorial approach centers on cross-sectoral, multi-genre contemporary music programming; presenting vanguard artistic projects and commissioning experimental collaborations. As a Fulbright scholar, she earned an MA in Arts Administration from the University of New Orleans in 2020. In her theoretical research, she focuses on decolonization, politically aware performance and ethics in the music industry.

"Winter Fest: Counterpoint with Ukraine is a multidisciplinary program focusing on the interdependency and celebration of cultures and experiences. The program includes new works and brand-new collaborations between Ukrainian and American artists; 'Magura,' a dance performance by Alina Sokulska; classics of Ukrainian magic realism cinema such as Sergei Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors; and an exhibition of Lesia Khomenko's "Undefined Figures."

Through music, art, dance, and film, we display sacred practices of ancient culture, intimate and fragile instants, love, dreams, aspirations — pieces of our life worth fighting for. Men in pixel uniforms—the Armed Forces of Ukraine—protecting these and making it possible to create the festival."
–Olga Bekenshtein