KUCHING: The Borneo Jazz Festival will focus on sustainability in its 17th edition as it returns next month in a hybrid format.
Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) chief executive Sharzede Salleh Askor said the festival on June 24-26 in Miri would promote ecological awareness as well as a cohesive music, arts and culture ecosystem within the local community.
"We'll be focusing on sustainability, empowering the community, responsible tourism and building up the ecosystem for music tourism.
"International artists will engage with the local community to sustain the interest of the young in music," she told a press conference here on Monday (May 9).
Towards this end, Sharzede said the festival activities included an eco drum jam project to create percussion instruments from recycled items and an eco-art installation from recyclable plastic waste.
There will also be a Borneo boat lute exhibition showcasing different types of boat lutes, including the sape.
In addition, the story of the sape will be dramatised in a live performance by musicians from the Miri Sape Movement.
"We hope to invite 12 to 15 sape musicians for this 30-minute performance to show the sape's beginnings and its evolution.
"The aim is to promote the sape among youths," festival artistic director Evelyn Hii said.
Sharzede also said the festival was making a physical comeback after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, with online viewing available for virtual visitors.
As Malaysia is still transitioning towards the endemic phase of the pandemic, she said STB was targeting a total of 3,000 physical festival-goers over the three days.
Those unable to attend physically can watch a two-hour show online each night, with tickets priced at RM25 per hour.
"The hybrid format is a new thing that we are trying. Last year, when we held the festival online without charging anything, we had over 200,000 viewers.
"This time, we are targeting a conservative figure of 10,000 online viewers," she said.