The Panama Jazz Festival was founded in September 2003 by Panamanian Grammy-winning pianist Danilo Pérez.

Perez founded the festival with the mission of bettering the lives of people through shared musical experiences as listeners, on stage and in the classrooms.

PANAMA JAZZ FESTIVAL

By offering performances and educational activities of the highest order, as well as practical, hands on training in the music and entertainment business, the Panama Jazz Festival aims to inspire and educate while providing tools and opportunities to build a better future for individuals and their communities.

The Panama Jazz Festival is the most important annual event for the ¨Fundacion Danilo Perez” which positively transforms society through music, by tirelessly working with the new generations throughout the year.

After many years, the festival has become a cultural tourism attraction that has already enticed to Panama more than 220,000 people from all over the world.

The Festival has also announced more than 4,000,000 dollars in scholarships and served more than 10,000 students from Latin American and the world.

featured artist

After contributing seven decades of musical direction and genius, Randy Weston remains one of the world’s foremost pianists and composers today, a true innovator and visionary.

Encompassing the vast rhythmic heritage of Africa, his global creations musically continue to inform and inspire.

Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat but his art is more than projection and time; it’s the result of a studious and inspired intelligence. An intelligence that is creating a fresh synthesis of African elements with jazz technique

states jazz critic Stanley Crouch

The Panama Jazz Festival supports the year-round educational programs of Danilo Perez Foundation, which brings art and music to children from extremely poor communities in the Republic of Panama.

“I invite you to celebrate with music to create a rhythm that inspires peace and brotherhood.” - Danilo Perez