Following the successful launch of the “NICA exchange” concert series in cooperation between NICA artist development and Cologne Jazzweek as part of the 2022 edition of the festival and its establishment in the regular programme of Stadtgarten Köln, the collaboration will be continued and two concerts will be presented as part of this year’s festival under the title “NICA exchange x CJW”. NICA exchange enables up-and-coming national and international musicians, particularly from the fields of jazz and improvised music, to play on the stages of the Cologne festival. The main focus of the concert series is to create spaces of exchange for a young, experimental generation of musicians, to encourage sustainable networking and creative exchange and, in the context of the festival, to initiate a connection with an audience eager to discover new things. The musicians and bands for “NICA exchange” are selected in collaboration with NICA partner organisations. Past collaborations have included BIMHUIS Amsterdam, RAUW Festival Rotterdam, JazzLab Belgium, INTL Jazzplatform Poland, AJC Jazz France and We Jazz from Helsinki.