Avant-Garde Jazz Series • By Sun-Mi Hong • ft. Nick Dunston & Audrey Chen • 3rd Edition

ZOJazz Stage is a concert hall and rehearsal house for jazz and global music in Amsterdam Zuidoost, housed in the Zandkasteel building at Bijlmerplein 888 in the Amsterdamse Poort. It grew out of the work of Graziëlla Hunsel Rivero, a singer, songwriter and cultural entrepreneur who lives in Zuidoost. In 2023 she hosted her first concerts on the theatre square of Zandkasteel, a former ING headquarters, where there was room for about 90 people. A year later a rehearsal space with a small stage followed, but it was still too limited for what she had in mind. The venue opened as a full concert hall on 11 May 2026. The main room measures 300 square metres and holds 190 seated guests, or around 250 standing, with a foyer and hospitality facilities alongside. Hunsel Rivero has described it as a musical living room, and she has argued that jazz is in the DNA of the Bijlmer while the area lagged behind the rest of Amsterdam in cultural provision. The hall is meant to fill that gap. The programme centres on Dutch and international jazz and global music, with both established and emerging artists performing and rehearsing on site. Talent development is part of the setup too, through learning courses, jam sessions and masterclasses, and young music professionals can use the venue to network and show their work. The stage also takes part in South East Jazz, a series of free concerts that pairs local musicians with international names. Hunsel Rivero stresses community as the core idea, saying the venue should be a place where people from Zuidoost can grow as artists. The building is also used for company events and group outings built around live music.