Cully Jazz Festival is an eight-day event in the Swiss Riviera, featuring 35 ticketed concerts and more than 100 free concerts. Taking place in the wine-producing region of Lavaux-Oron in Canton Vaud overlooking Lake Geneva, its setting is sumptuous. It's an unmissable event for both jazz fanatics and for those who want to soak up the atmosphere of global artistry and local wine.
Cully Jazz is known as one of the foremost jazz festivals in French-speaking Switzerland. It typically attracts over 62.000 festival-goers each year. This year sees the 42nd edition of Cully Jazz taking place on April 4-12, 2025. There are two main pillars, the OFF Festival, which involves free concerts and the IN Festival, for which you have to buy tickets in advance.
You can catch live concerts at the OFF Festival in cafés and wine cellars throughout the village of Cully. It provides a platform for many young Swiss jazz musicians, fostering artistry and encouraging the next generation of musicians. Upcoming artists playing in the OFF Festival often find themselves on the line-up for the IN Festival a couple of years later.
The main part of the festival is known as the IN Festival. The line-up is impressive.
This year, New York-born, Berlin-based hip hop artist Sorvina performs from the intersection between jazz rap, neo-soul, alternative hip-hop, and gospel. Also, Armenian pianist Tigran Hamaysan performs the concert version of The Bird of a Thousand Voices, merging jazz improvisation with sounds of his native Armenia. Meanwhile, legendary Cuban pianist Chuco Valdez makes an appearance with his quartet, 60 years after releasing his debut record.
Here's an overview of the headline artists performing on the Cully Jazz concert stages:
The biggest Cully Jazz Festival venue is Chapiteau, which seats 1.100 concert-goers. The other venues include Next Step, which is standing-room only, and Temple, a more intimate setting that seats 270 people.
There are specially dedicated festival accommodation packages for music fans who are visiting from out of town. There's plenty of information about accommodation on the Cully Jazz website, which is linked below.
Just like visitors to the Montreux Jazz Festival which takes place nearby each July, the local area is unparalleled in beauty and charm so it's worth staying over and getting to know the area during the Cully Jazz Festival. Visitors can enjoy the lake, mountains and historical sites such as the Lavaux vineyards which are a UNESCO Heritage Site.
Standard tickets to the IN Festival start at 42 Swiss francs and can be booked on the Cully Jazz Festival website. A limited number of all-inclusive passes are available for 520 Swiss francs. These allow access to all concerts throughout the festival.
If you'd like to simply soak up the atmosphere of the city during the event and attend free concerts without buying a ticket to the main festival stages, then simply book your public transport tickets and accommodation and get yourself to Cully. The village is easy to reach from Swiss cities like Lausanne and Geneva.