The British musician Louise Balkwill was the winner of the jazz artist competition Riga Jazz Stage 2022 in the vocalist category. She has also received the prestigious Vivian Prindl Outreach Prize from Trinity College of Music in London. Already last year, at the Riga Jazz Stage competition, Louise proved that she has absolute stage charisma, which, combined with her convincing, free vocal performance, is able to instantly enchant the audience and make them want this musical performance not to end for a long time. Balkwill represents the new generation of British swing jazz, proving that this genre too is still full of ageless joie de vivre and modern vibes. Her concert at the festival will take place on July 7 on the Riga Jazz Lounge stage, and Louise will be joined by great Latvian musicians – pianist Viktors Ritovs, bassist Jānis Rubiks and drummer Pauls Pokratnieks.

Artists from Cuba, Switzerland, Mozambique, Spain, France and Denmark will also come to Riga, but the central event will be the premiere of Maestro Raymonds Paul's symphonic jazz program Songs Without Words together with the chamber orchestra Sinfonietta Rīga.

The central stage of the festival will be located in the Riga Cathedral Garden, where on July 6 the representative of the new golden generation of Cuban jazz, singer and violinist Yilian Cañizares will perform with the Resilience Trio, and in the second part of the evening - the charismatic French blues singer, guitarist and harmonica master Charles Pasi with the band. And on July 7, the Danish flamenco guitar virtuoso Jacob Gurevitsch with his trio will perform, the Raimonds Paul’s trio performing in the second part together with the chamber orchestra Sinfonietta Rīga under the direction of conductor Normunds Šnē.

The full program is yet to be announced. On July 6 and 7, the Latvian Radio Studio 1 will also host entrance-free workshops given by the main guest artists of the festival.

Meanwhile, Biļešu paradīze service has already started selling tickets at bilesuparadize.lv for the concerts of the festival planned in the Riga Cathedral Garden.