UVJF 2025 DAY TWO: JAZZ, KITES, AND A SINGING RIVER
The second night of the Sthala Ubud Village Jazz Festival (UVJF) 2025 was a full-throttle celebration of global jazz culture set in the heart of Lodtunduh. Over two days, the festival pulled thousands of jazz lovers into a world where music met nature, tradition met modernity, and every note felt like a shared heartbeat under the Bali sky.
This year’s festival layout was stripped down but strikingly effective: just two stages, each with its own soul. Giri Stage roared with big-band brilliance and layered harmonies, while Subak Stage, nestled beside the river, offered an intimate listening experience where melodies blended with the sound of running water—a kind of magic you can’t script.
Day two opened with Dizzy & Wicked, a tight electro-jazz quartet that painted the afternoon with Tentative Love, Canggu City Bob, and Lotus Blossom, setting a sleek, urban groove. The East West European Jazz Orchestra then lit up Giri Stage, swinging hard through Almost Like Being in Love, Love for Sale, and the Bali-inspired Samba Para Ubud, their big brass sound sweeping the crowd off their feet.
On Subak Stage, Balawan Trio feat. Jiyestha blurred the lines between jazz fusion and Balinese roots, leaping from Travelling Nusantara to Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing before closing with Bali Bach, a six-string sprint across continents. ROUGE, hailing from France, turned the evening introspective with their cinematic pieces Tempête, Strawberries in the Dark, and Pink Flamingo—jazz as poetry, delicate yet searing.
As twilight set in, Jazz Traveller delivered a playful run of originals like G. Blues and Jazz Pasar, paving the way for a masterclass from Makoto Kuriya Trio. The Japanese legend soared through Intro Blues, Sakura Garden, and the bebop burner Cherokee, proving once again that jazz knows no borders.
Later, Mahanada hushed the crowd with smoky takes on Round Midnight and Me Myself Nada, before Galaxy Big Band brought the house down with a thunderous finale: The Wind Machine, Georgia on My Mind, Feeling Good, and Coffee Rumba turning the festival grounds into one giant, joyous exhale beneath the starlit sky.
But UVJF is more than a music festival—it’s an immersive cultural experience. This year, festival architects Klick Swantara and Diana Surya teamed up with Kadek Armika and his kite community, Rare Angon, to create monumental kite installations across the venue. Towering Janggan, sweeping Wayang figures, and a colossal Barong hung over the Sthala bridge, transforming traditional Balinese craftsmanship into architectural art for a global jazz audience.
Environmental consciousness also took center stage. UVJF implemented a deposit cup system, requiring visitors to leave a small deposit for reusable cups—returned for cash or kept as a keepsake. The result? A festival site nearly free of plastic waste, proving that world-class music events can live in harmony with their surroundings.
“This festival will keep going next year because it’s part of our shared idealism,” said Anom Darsana, UVJF co-founder. “For 12 years, we’ve built a new cultural icon in Ubud, bringing musicians from all over the globe. We hope for stronger support in the future to keep this vision alive. And we are endlessly grateful to every team member and volunteer who made UVJF 2025 possible.”
As the final applause echoed from the riverside to the main stage, it wasn’t just for the bands. It was for the experience itself: honest music, a crowd breathing in sync with every note, Balinese culture rising in monumental forms, and a promise kept to the earth beneath our feet. UVJF 2025 closed with an unspoken vow—to return next year, louder, bolder, and ready to make Ubud swing once more.