Mikhail Ikonnikov: It’s more fun to find musicians myself

— Mikhail, it's too early to sum things up, but how is the festival going so far?

— So far we can sum up the first day. I think it was a great success. The audience was large, just as we'd planned. Both the pit stalls and the beach were full. There were no complaints whatsoever about lighting or sound because it is being handled by a team of top professionals. The performers are happy, which is important in itself. You may have seen that Will Johns was delighted at the reception, he played an encore.

I should give credit to Yakov Okun, who found himself in an awkward situation as he was supposed to be a headliner whereas a performer in front of him brought everyone to their feet. Nevertheless, he managed to play in such a way that the audience realized he was indeed the real headliner.

— Speaking about Will Johns. In an interview last year you said the festival lacks blues musicians. Are you planning to invite them in the future?

— Absolutely. This year I carried out a bit of an experiment, luckily, no one objected and everyone saw that the experiment was a success. There's even a chance that we will be bringing out a blues musician each day.

— Аre you going to put in any other styles? How about rock?

— Rock… I would rather not make it a totally un-jazz event. We're going to take various kinds of blues. Even if we take a load of British musicians that will follow Will Johns' trail, they all work together and come to Moscow via the same booking agent. They play different sorts of blues: some more of a rock style, some tend to be more jazz, yet others lean towards funk. That is why they will fill in all the niches, and yet we will not move too far away from the concept of a jazz festival. In my view, we can't be too die-hard: it's a jazz festival, sure, but we are not holding it for ourselves but for the audience. We see what kind of music they receive well, and we won't be straying from the concept, but if we can try to walk a borderline, why shouldn't we?

— You said in an interview last year that you would like to attract new audiences to jazz. How is that working out?

— It's hard to say. The festival was held in the fall last year whereas now it's summer — that's why there are more people. I can't say for sure if there are any new converts in the audience.

— During yesterday's news conference a Chinese journalist suggested you should invite jazz musicians from China. What do you think of that?

— I've had no contacts with them. In this case it's more fun for me to find people performing jazz in China and bring them over myself rather than follow someone's advice. I have already faced a situation when some friend of a friend recommends someone and it seems hard to say no, yet I am aware that the person does not quite fit in. That's why it's easier to sift through YouTube myself, on Chinese sites, since everything is dubbed in English nowadays.

— Have you ever thought about performers from exotic countries, such as North Korea, maybe?

— We can invite musicians from any country, provided the politics does not get in the way. But they should fit the standard. It is wrong to run around and set a goal to fill all the niches with exotic countries. Why should we, if we realize that we are bringing over a musician who is not as good as a Russian musician? To put another check and hoist one more flag? I think that's wrong.