32nd Skopje Jazz Festival kicks off

The 32nd Skopje Jazz Festival kicks off on Thursday evening with performances by the British-Slovenian duo Evan Parker and Zlatko Kaucic and the UK band 'Get The Blessing".

The festival, which runs till Oct. 21, offers current and renowned acts from the global jazz scene, its director Oliver Belopeta told a press conference on Tuesday.

The opening day is dedicated to British jazz as a way to mark 20 years of friendship between Macedonia and the UK. One of the most prominent jazz musicians in the world, saxophonist Evan Parker will perform in Macedonia for the first time together with Slovenian improviser Zlatko Kaucic. The second act of the evening is Get The Blessing, lauded as one of UK's best live bands.

Sidsel Endresen and Stian Westerhus from Norway and The Abercrombie Quartet from the United States are slated to perform on Friday.

The Balkan premiere of the project "Balkan Fever", presenting Vlatko Stefanovski, Miroslav Tadic and Theodosii Spassov at a concert together with the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, will take place on Saturday.

Jazz icon Roscoe Mitchell and his trio and legendary jazz singer Cassandra Wilson with Harriet Tubman music collective are scheduled to perform on Sunday.

The festival's final day is reserved for the Paris-based Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf and one of the jazz’s greatest bass players Dave Holland.

Number of passangers at Macedonia's airports continues to rise

The number of passengers passing through the two Macedonian airports in August increased by 20.5% compared to the same month last year, new figures show released by TAV Macedonia - the operator of the Skopje-based "Alexander the Great" airport and "St. Paul the Apostle" airport in Ohrid.

The Skopje airport handled 115,023 passengers, up 23.1%, while the Ohrid airport was used by 16,463 passengers i.e. 131,486 passed through the two airports.

In the first eight months of 2013, compared to the same period last year, an increase in the number of passengers was recorded - a total of 732,831 people, up 17.5%. There has been also a rise in the number of flights. 8,489 operations of aircrafts were realized between January and August, which is a 9.9% increase compared to the same period in 2012. A significant increase of 16.2% was registered in August in comparison to the same month last year.

This increase comes as a result of introducing several additional flights per week by Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Croatia Airlines and Fly Dubai. During the summer season, flight were being realized weekly to popular tourist destinations, such as Antalya and Izmir and Sicily.

Istanbul followed by Vienna, London and Malmo were the most popular destinations from the Skopje airport in August, stated the press release. Istanbul, Vienna, Zurich, London and Ljubljana were the top five destinations between January and August. Most of the passengers traveled with Wizz Air, Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Adria Airways and Pegasus Airlines.

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