In the Spotlight: Curacao North Sea Jazz Festival!

As I was looking back at another amazing year of the Curacao North Sea Jazz Festival, I thought why not share this pretty amazing & surreal experience with you guys? For those of you who don't know what the Curacao North Sea Jazz Festival (CNSJF) is, it is basically a 2 day festival happening in Curacao (duh!) with performances by different (major) international artists. The music genres varies from Jazz to Latin to R&B. This year was actually the 3rd edition of the CNSJF and oh boy, it was bigger than ever!!

We all have the dream of seeing our favorite artists in concert one day and if you live on a small island like me, that dream mainly involves traveling to another country when that artist is on tour. But for me now, it involves waiting on the line up for the next CNSJF!

As I already mentioned, in my opinion this year was the biggest & best festival so far. Not only because artists such as Alicia Keys and Mana were headliners for the festival, but mostly because of the whole "On the road to CNSJF" as I would like to call it. For me this all started on July 20th with the Prince Royce concert and from there it was the different concerts the week prior to the weekend of the festival. On August 26th there was the (free) Kirk Franklin concert. Not even in a million years did I imagine seeing him in concert and let alone on my island. And so there were more concerts that week, including artists such as Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz, Tania Kross, Gregor Salto, Alain Clark and Gregory Porter. What I like the most about this event is that our local talents are not excluded. Every year you can find local artists as part of the program.

My experience with this festival started since its first year. I remember that year, John Legend was the highlight of the festival for me. Although I was standing in the front and took a lot of pictures, I still can't believe I saw John Legend in concert on my island. So surreal!! 

This year, the surreal feeling was no different. I was standing pretty much in the front again. Before  Alicia Keys performed, we had Leslie Grace. Leslie is the newest member of the record label Top Stop Music, which is also known for artists such as Prince Royce & Luis Enrique. Leslie brought us her debut single, a bachata adaptation of Will u still love me tomorrow. I was amazed by her voice!!

Leslie Grace

And then it was time for the performance I've been waiting on for 2 to 3 months now, Ms Alicia Keys!! Despite the fact that the show started later than planned, she knew how to get the public all hyped again by opening her show with New Day!! I think the duration of the show was around 1 hour and 20 minutes. She performed songs like Diary, Fallin, A woman's worth, Teenage love affair & Empire State of Mind just to name a few. 

All by all I can say that the organization of the Curacao North Sea Jazz Festival can look back at three spectacular years and the event getting bigger with the year. Personally I never doubted this event seeing the people behind it and their expertise. So I knew from the start that the money I paid was going to be worth it and I was right.

Honestly right now I can't wait for the announcements and confirmations of the artists for next year's line up!!

xx

-S