Legendary jazz pianist-composer Michel Camilo returns this summer for the Malta Jazz Festival. The Dominican multi-Grammy award winner will perform on July 20.

This year’s line-up at the festival, which will be held between July 18 and 20 at Ta’ Liesse, outside Valletta, will also see the Robert Glasper Experiment, fresh from his Grammy-award victory, and two-time Grammy award nominee Gerald Clayton with his trio.

Mr Clayton’s dynamic sound has been praised by the Jazz Times and Los Angeles Times and he was recently voted as the top “Rising Star – Pianist” in Down Beat Magazine’s 2010 Critics Poll.

Grammy nominees Vijay Iyer Grammy and Gregory Porter will perform on July 19.

Israeli-born musician Gilad Hekselman and his quartet make their appearance on July 20.

The Maltese acts will include the festival’s former artistic director, Charles City Gatt, with his vibraphone quintet on July 18, the Walter Vella quartet on July 19 and Cusp on July 20.

This year’s events will include the first editions of the Malta Jazz Contest and The Malta Summer Jazz Camp.

The contest will be held on July 21 and is open to Maltese jazz musicians up to the age of 35. Participation is free of charge. The winner will take part in Les Sons d’Une Île festival in Paris, organised by the Embassy of Malta in France.

The camp will feature some of the most important musicians in the European jazz scene and will be held at the Euro Institute of Music in Ħamrun between July 17 and 20. It will be free of charge.

The Malta Jazz Festival is supported by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts and is sponsored by Malta International Airport, Cyberpass, MSV Life, Switch, the Hotel Phoenicia, the Valletta local council and the Ministry of Culture.

See also: maltajazzfestival.org