The Novi Sad OLD GOLD Jazz Festival was founded in 1999 under the wing of the Cultural Center of Novi Sad with an international character. In the previous years the main concert program of the Novi Sad OLD GOLD Jazz Festival included the performances of musicians and ensembles from Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Moldavia, Israel, Slovenia, Croatia, and the United States of America (Jimmy Cobb, Benny Bailey, Eddie Henderson, Andy Bay, Douglas Sides). There were, of course, the most prominent ensembles from Yugoslavia/ Serbia and Montenegro, and among them those who have their place on the European and world scene: Dusko Gojkovic, Stjepko Gut, Mihajlo Blam, Aleksandar Milosevic, Milos Krstic, Bora Rokovic, Dzo Mikovic, Vojislav Brkovic - Voya Bee, etc.
The uniqueness of the Novi Sad OLD GOLD Festival lies in its desire to cherish authorial music and the jazz music of the highest quality of our contemporaries and world renowned authors. During the last decade, talented young jazz musicians from Novi Sad and other towns of our country went to schools in Vienna, Graz, Helsinki, Cologne, Budapest and the USA. They keep bringing new energy to Novi Sad and wherever they go, and they are the driving force of this Festival and of similar musical events in our country.
The Novi Sad OLD GOLD Jazz Festival has had significant support of the Cultural Centers and Embassies of other countries for years now. In the year 2003, these are the Goethe Institute, the American Embassy and the Austrian Forum for Culture. In the field of program, the Festival has had great support from Dortmund and Modena, the towns Novi Sad has a traditionally good cooperation with when culture is concerned.
The Festival has been stirring up more and more public interest. The Cultural Center of Novi Sad, acting as its producer and organizer, is proud of its strong and continuous relations with all the ensembles that have participated in the program of the Festival for the past four years. The Novi Sad OLD GOLD Jazz Festival has more and more friends in our country and abroad, which is reflected in the fact that the Web address of the Festival has appeared on a number of Internet search engines. Although it is the organizer of the Festival who took care of that, almost all the ensembles and musicians who have been to Novi Sad and got the chance to meet our audience have contributed to that.
The Novi Sad OLD GOLD Jazz Festival brings together all those whose music skills and knowledge can make it better. This year's Festival program bears the stamp of a first-class percussionist who is an integral part of many jazz scenes and music projects, an artist welcome among his peers and those who are a part of the music world in any way - the stamp of Uros Secerov, the Art Director of the Novi Sad OLD GOLD Jazz Festival.

Novi Sad proves again this year, that it is truly a City of Culture, first of all for the tradition it cherishes, as well as for the true values it offers to its citizens. Not the first but certainly somewhere at the top of the list stands OUR Novi Sad Old Gold Jazz Festival.
This year, supported by our sponsors, we have succeeded in launching OUR Festival into the orbit of recognized and relevant festivals in Europe.
The program concept has been made in such a way to represent a display of all the trends in jazz ranging from contemporary expression to the representatives of mainstream, but all of them having one common denominator - percussion instruments. We have here our Marko Djordjevic, who will fascinate you, Montez Coleman, currently the most sought after drummer in New York, as well as the old lion, Ratko Divjak. They will guide us through the history of jazz music in a unique way.
Finally this year, we have an opportunity to have the great, unique and always amazing Trilok Gurtu, a true star of the jazz skies, as our guest. I can safely say that he is a musician who has set new standards for playing percussion instruments, establishing an immensely harmonious blend of eastern and western music.
I am sure that you will enjoy every evening of the Festival and that the impressions will stay deep inside you until the next festival, which will hopefully exceed this year's. I also hope that this festival will be one more brick in the wall, building the Tradition of the City of Culture.