Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR is a partner of the 47th Montreux Jazz Festival, which started last week.

The festival is perceived as one of the most central and colorful festivals in the list of this year's international jazz events.

Successfully representing Azerbaijan on the Swiss business scene, SOCAR aims to improve and promote the cultural dialogue between Azerbaijan and Switzerland.

SOCAR has been the main partner of Montreux Jazz Festival for two consecutive years. Due to the fruitful cooperation with the Montreux Jazz Festival Foundation during 2013, SOCAR managed to re-establish the famous Montreux Jazz guitar competition, which will be back to the official competition program this year.

In addition to that, SOCAR will be supporting Azerbaijani jazz singer Sevda Alekperzadeh, who will perform in Montreux in the framework of this year's "Music in the park" program.

Her first concert will be held in Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva on July 11. Swiss officials including ministers, as well as people of culture, businesspeople and political figures are expected to watch the concert. Sevda plans to perform with a program including popular hits and new songs.

Alekperzadeh will represent Azerbaijan at the world-famous Montreux Jazz Festival on July 14. The jazz festival will be held in Montreux on July 5-20.

Alekperzadeh's performance will be held in the open air at Parc Vernex, which has capacity of up to 2,500 people. The half-hour concert will include the most popular ethno-jazz songs, which brought her the title "the magic voice of the Caspian Sea" in Europe.

Founded by Claude Nobs in 1967, over the years the Montreux Jazz Festival has become an unmissable event for music fans in Switzerland and around the world. Its stages have been graced by all of music greats, from Miles Davis to Ray Charles and from David Bowie to Prince.

In 2007, Azerbaijani jazzman Shahin Novrasli took second place, and in 2009 Isfar Sarabskiy was the winner of the festival.