Department of Cultural Affairs

Since 2007, Taipei City Government has been building a “city music brand” through the Taipei Jazz Festival. Over the years, the festival has cultivated a rich jazz culture, allowing the spirit of jazz—democracy, openness, fusion—to resonate throughout Taipei, deeply embedding jazz into every corner of the city.

Alley Impromptu Stage: Infusing the Improvisational Spirit of Jazz into the Streets

During the 2025 Taipei Jazz Festival, the specially curated “Alley Impromptu Stage” series will be staged at nine lively jazz bars and music spaces across the city, allowing the public to step into the world of live jazz and personally experience its most essential spirit: improvisation. 

Throughout the performances, audiences will fully feel the boundless energy of jazz radiating from the stage, while they watch musicians engage in dialogue and playful competition through their instruments, creating a completely new kind of experience. The series also features an interactive “stamp collection” system, allowing attendees to earn stamps and redeem souvenirs, adding a fun, engaging layer that deepens participation and connection to the festival.

Jazz Now Live Sessions: Resonating Jazz Across Taipei

This year, the festival brings jazz into historically and culturally significant spaces in Taipei, including heritage buildings, traditional markets, museums, cultural venues, and even the zoo, expanding both the spatial practice and urban connection of jazz. 

Seven “Jazz Now Live Sessions” will be held, pairing the historical and architectural context of each venue with an appropriate jazz style to create a dialogue between history and musical narrative while reshaping the listener’s perception of space and time. These sessions not only embody jazz’s cross-generational vitality and diversity, and the possibilities of reinterpretation across different locales, but also reflect a broader trend in contemporary performing arts: the dynamic interplay between space and sound. 

Here, listeners are no longer passive recipients. Through their live participation, they become part of a renewed interpretation of the city’s sonic culture. In this way, the experience opens new pathways for reflecting on how urban memory, bodily perception, and musical culture are interwoven.

Taipei Music Center Plaza: International Convergence of Outdoor Jazz

The main stage will be in the Taipei Music Center outdoor plaza from September 26 to 28. Over three days, top jazz ensembles from Taiwan and abroad will gather under the curatorial theme of “intergenerational dialogue × international exchange” to present a rich spectrum of classic, contemporary, and experimental styles—highlighting the boundless possibilities of jazz and its resonance with the spirit of the times. 

Highlights will include Rich Huang leading a Taiwanese jazz band, Chris Babida exploring jazz possibilities, Hungary’s Loop Doctors delivering explosive energy, the delicate French-style piano of the Remi Panossian Trio, and three closing performances with the Taipei Jazz Orchestra, Rangsit Jazz Orchestra led by Denny Euprasert, and the Blue Note Tokyo All-Star Jazz Orchestra led by Eric Miyashiro, presenting a grand symphonic jazz dialogue.

Cultivating Taipei Jazz: OPEN CALL Jazz Talent Accelerator

Through the OPEN CALL mechanism, 12 outstanding jazz ensembles will be selected to perform on both the Alley Impromptu Stage and the Jazz Now Live Sessions stage, expanding performance formats and increasing musician participation, while giving audiences more opportunities to experience the wide-ranging allure of jazz sounds. 

At the same time, 21 top jazz musicians will be chosen to form the Taipei All-Star Jazz Big Band (臺北全明星爵士大樂團), personally led by internationally renowned jazz educator Dr. Gene Aitken. After intensive training in the Jazz Talent Accelerator (爵士能量加速器) program, the ensemble will make its grand debut on the main stage, where it will demonstrate the depth of energy that the 2025 Taipei Jazz Festival brings as one of Asia’s major jazz platforms.

The 2025 Taipei Jazz Festival will launch on September 3 and present nearly a full month of performances and activities, including: nine intimate indoor Alley Impromptu Stage sessions tucked away in Taipei’s alleyway jazz bars, eight Jazz Now Live Sessions staged in distinctive venues, two storefront pop-up events at Taipei Music Center Plaza, and three consecutive days of large-scale outdoor concerts at the same venue.

With the slogan “Jazz Everywhere,” the festival underscores the idea that jazz is boundless—diverse, cross-disciplinary, and omnipresent. 

From September 3 to 28, jazz will be everywhere throughout Taipei, waiting to be discovered by the public. For full details, follow the 2025 Taipei Jazz Festival Facebook page.

Event Overview

2025 Taipei Jazz Festival

Alley Impromptu Stage:

Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from September 3 to September 19, across nine jazz live houses.

Jazz Now Live Sessions:

September 6 (Sat): National Taiwan Museum Nanmen Branch - 1915 Nizukuri-ba

September 7 (Sun): Treasure Hill Artist Village

September 13 (Sat): Umkt, Guandu Wharf

September 14 (Sun): Taipei Zoo, Guandu Wharf

September 20 (Sat): Songshan Cultural and Creative Park

September 21 (Sun): Taipei Performing Arts Center

Large-Scale Outdoor Concerts

September 26 to 28, Taipei Music Center Outdoor Plaza

NB: Programme is subject to change. Refer to official announcements on 2025 Taipei Jazz Festival platforms for the latest updates.