Montreux Jazz Festival Montreux Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second largest annual jazz festival in the world after Canada's Montreal International Jazz Festival. The Montreux Jazz Festival was founded in 1967 by Claude Nobs, Géo Voumard and René Langel with considerable help from Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün of Atlantic Records. The festival was first held at Montreux Casino. It lasted for three days and featured almost exclusively jazz artists. The
Monterey Jazz Festival is now as diverse and vibrant as Lyons imagined it ever could be." In 2006, the festival set an attendance record of 40,000, selling out all five major concerts on the main stage arena, and in 2007, 40,000 attended the 50th Golden Celebration. The Monterey Jazz Festival is a nonprofit organization. It has donated its proceeds to musical education since its inception in 1958. The festival's scholarship program started with a $35,000 scholarship fund in 1970. As of 2012, the festival invests $600,000 annually for jazz education. Every spring, the Monterey Jazz Festival invites student musicians from across the country