Nadin Deventer

Artistic Director Jazzfest Berlin

Nadin Deventer, born in 1977, studied European studies and music in Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin. For 20 years she has been active as a curator, dramaturg and project director in various contexts in the cultural arena and has left her mark on van Vlaanderen festival programmes in Brussels and, following that, the jazz cultural landscape in the Ruhr district in particular. She worked at the Ruhrtriennale and in the team of Ruhr.2010 – European Capital of Culture, for which she curated No blah-blah!, an international jazz programme with 60 projects in more than 20 cities. For nine years (2007–2016), Nadin Deventer directed the jazzwerkruhr, a regional network and festival that she successively developed further with innovative projects such as jazzplayseurope into an international artists’ workshop and coproduction cell. In 2011, she carried out the award-winning 24-hours-run What’s in the fridge?, a bi-national cooperation project within the framework of the Jazztopad Festival in Wroclaw. As artistic director, she created in 2013 the third edition of festival n.a.t.u.r. – natürliche ästhetik trifft urbanen raum, a platform situated between art, culture, actionism, urbanity and ecology with 171 events during 12 festival days. From 2012 to 2018 she was appointed to the board of the Europe Jazz Network. She worked as the head of organisation for the Berliner Festspiele’s directorship and was from 2015 to 2017 responsible for the Jazzfest Berlin and from 2014 to 2017 as well for the institution’s special projects.

Since 2018 Nadin Deventer has served as artistic director of Jazzfest Berlin and since 2023 she expanded the festival’s concert programme to include participatory outreach and community projects. Under her artistic leadership the Jazzfest Berlin was nominated Festival of the Year 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025 by the German Jazz Award and received the Award for Adventurous Programming by the Europe Jazz Network in 2021. The experimental short film DREAM BABY DREAM, the centerpiece of Jazzfest Berlin’s community and outreach programme in 2025, won the IN Series Counterpoint Award at the 2026 Liminal Dance Film Festival in Washington, D.C., USA.