Best of Budapest & Hungary

Rick Astley and Level 42 are the best-known performers at this year's 11th Paloznak Jazz Picnic, and other world-famous foreign artists will also be performing from Thursday to Saturday in the Balaton Highlands.

    Nik West and Rick Astley will perform on the opening day on August 3, Dirty Loops and Thievery Corporation on August 4, and Incognito and Level 42 on the main stage on the closing day, Saturday, August 5. The Jazz Picnic will feature more than 40 artists on four stages over three days.

    American funk-rock, soul singer and bassist Nik West has worked with world stars such as Prince and Lenny Kravitz. Britain's Rick Astley was one of the most popular pop singers of the 1980s, and his hit Never Gonna Give You Up is a hit everyone remembers. He quit at the peak and his album, released for his 50th birthday in 2016, topped the UK charts. In 2019, she gave one of the most successful concerts in the history of Paloznak Jazz Picnic.    

    On the second day of the festival, the main stage will be opened by Dirty Loops, a Swedish group based in New York and managed by Quincy Jones. They will be followed by Thievery Corporation, a Washington duo that reimagines electronic music with Eastern and Brazilian motifs. The group has sold over a million records worldwide in twenty years.    

    The closing concert on Saturday will feature the British acid jazz band Incognito, who have been to Jazz Picnic several times. The group has been around since 1979 and their biggest hit was 1992's Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing. Level 42's first concert in Hungary was cancelled twice due to the coronavirus epidemic, but this year, it will finally take place. The British jazz-funk group, led by singer-bassist Mark King, had their biggest hits in the eighties with hits like Lessons in Love and Running in the Family. Level 42 have sold more than 30 million records.

    The 11th edition of the festival in Paloznak will also feature some of the best-known names in the Hungarian jazz scene, including the Barabás Lőrinc Quartet, Sena Dagadub, Random Trip with Bencé Vavra, Vanavan and ODD ID.

    In addition to the music, gastronomy will also be in the spotlight, with a selection of street food exhibitors, champagnes and Balaton wines. The Jazz Picnic is hosted by Homola Winery.

     The festival will also be attended by the Together for Autistic People Foundation, the Tűzoltó Street Department of Semmelweis University, the Pediatric Clinic, the Superar Foundation, which provides free art training for disadvantaged children and young people with the help of trained musicians, the Green Belt Association, which is involved in festival gardening, and the Jane Goodall Institute, which works to sensitize children to environmental issues.