Abdul Karim (fourth right) alongside (from left) Lim, Ferguson, Raden, Abdul Aziz, Hii, Nisa, and Gracie give the thumbs up as they pose next to the Kuching Jazz bunting which shows Afgan as one of the headlining acts of the upcoming international jazz festival.
KUCHING (Aug 30): Popular Indonesian singer Afgan will be headlining the upcoming Kuching Jazz 2022 which will be held at the Grand Margherita Hotel here on Oct 28 and 29.
The award-winning artiste will be performing at the international music festival which is making a comeback after a lapse of two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said Indonesian performers have always been a crowd favourite at previous festivals with fans enjoying music from performers such as Tulus, Tompi, Kunto Aji and more.
“I’m happy to announce Afgan as one of our top headliners this year. He has quite a big fan base in Malaysia and also locally in Sarawak, and his name has been requested by fans of the festival for many years.
“After three successful festivals since 2017, we are finally able to fulfil this request and bring in Afgan to perform at the fourth edition of Kuching Jazz,” he told a press conference at Tribes Jazz & Reggae Lounge here today.
In addition to Afgan, Kuching Jazz, an event which falls under the What About Kuching calendar of events, will also feature artistes and bands from Singapore, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, all of which will be revealed in the coming weeks.
“We are also delighted to welcome Nisa Addina as the festival’s artistic director. She is a young Sarawakian, classically trained in jazz from the famous Berklee College of Music in the USA.
“What’s interesting is Nisa is an ‘alumni’ of Kuching Jazz as she herself performed at the festival back in 2019.
“We are very much looking forward to tapping into her artistic talent, background and network of musicians as well as her advantage of being young and in tune with music trends that will help the festival appeal to a younger crowd,” said Abdul Karim.
Abdul Karim said around 4,000 festival goers are expected to attend Kuching Jazz over the two nights.
“I’m very happy to see many events like Kuching Jazz being organised because these reflect that we are going back to where we were before (the pandemic) or even better than before,” he said, noting that through these events, this in turn contributed to the growth of the state’s economy.
He anticipated that Kuching Jazz will continue to be a hit much like other international events organised here.
“We have more than 700,000 visitors coming in to the state from January this year until now so it is just the right time to organise events.
“In fact, practically anything that we organise now has ‘meletup’ (gone with a bang) whether it’s the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF), Borneo Jazz Festival, or the most recent Kuching Cultural and Food Festival, which hit more than one million visitors.
“So I’m very sure that the Kuching Jazz 2022 this time around will also ‘meletup’,” he said.
Meanwhile, the launch of Kuching Jazz 2022 also coincided with the relaunching of Tribes Jazz & Reggae Lounge at Grand Margherita Hotel.
Also present were Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts permanent secretary Hii Chang Kee, Consul-General of the Republic of Indonesia in Kuching Raden Sigit Witjaksono, Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) chairman Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Husain, Hemisphere Corporation Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Mark Ferguson, chief operating officer Dr Yuslan Yusoff, Kuching Jazz festival advisor Gracie Geikie, and Riverside Majestic Hotel and Grand Margherita Hotel general manager Andrew Lim.
Kuching Jazz 2022 is organised by Hemisphere Corporation Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of SEDC, and is supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts.
A special one-week only Kuching Jazz promotion of RM300 for a two-day pass is available for purchase starting tomorrow (Aug 31) until Sept 6.
Those who wish to enjoy this special early bird rate can do so by downloading the free Insiders Club app.
Tickets can also be purchased at www.kuchingjazz.com until Oct 27 at RM180 for a one-day pass and RM350 for a two-day pass while gate sale of tickets on the days of the festival is priced at RM200 for each day.
For further enquiries, please call 082-555189 or email [email protected]. The latest updates can also be found on Kuching Jazz’s social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.