International Jazz Festival Hamm

International Jazz Festival Hamm — Biennial Jazz Highlight

The International Jazz Festival Hamm is one of the most important jazz festivals in Westphalia. Held every two years (biennially), it brings top international artists to the industrial city on the eastern edge of the Ruhr region. In 2026, the edition coincides with the Hamm800 city anniversary — a double occasion for the festival, which takes place from April 17 to 19, 2026, in the newly renovated Kurhaus Bad Hamm.

2026 Program — Three Days of Jazz Tradition and Innovation

The 2026 festival combines established jazz greats with newcomers and a club stage specially set up for 2026:

• Friday, April 17, 2026 — Opening with Till Brönner: Germany's most famous jazz trumpeter opens the festival with his quartet
• Saturday, April 18, 2026 — Tigran Hamasyan (Armenian-American pianist) and Moses Yoofee (young Berlin-based pianist with Jewish-Arab roots)
• Sunday, April 19, 2026 — Randy Brecker and WDR Big Band: Brecker, one of the world's most influential jazz trumpeters, together with the WDR Big Band

New for 2026 — Jazz Club Stage with Jam Sessions

A festival innovation for 2026: in addition to the main stage in the grand hall, a Jazz Club stage will be set up, inviting to jam sessions in the Kurhaus lounge after the main concerts. Here, artists and local Hamm musicians can play together freely — a very direct and intimate form of encounter that adds an atmospherically valuable component to the festival.

Kurhaus Bad Hamm — New Home of the Festival

The Kurhaus Bad Hamm in the Bad Hamm district is the city's traditional concert and event venue — a historic building that has been extensively renovated in recent years. With its large concert hall, acoustically high-quality architecture, and foyer/lounge, it offers the ideal infrastructure for a three-day jazz festival. The next edition after 2026 is planned for 2028 — the festival remains biennial.

Hamm — Industrial City with Cultural Ambitions

Hamm is an independent city with around 180,000 inhabitants in the eastern Ruhr region (North Rhine-Westphalia), traditionally characterized as a railway and coal city. In recent decades, Hamm has actively repositioned itself as a cultural and economic center. The International Jazz Festival is one of the flagships of this cultural profiling — an event that adds a cultural dimension to the industrial city's image and brings world-class artists to Hamm.