For 15 years, Milena Sandler and Joel Widmaier welcomed some of the biggest international names in jazz and R&B to Haiti amid political turmoil, fuel shortages and protests, musicians like Branford Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Joss Stone.
Then came the wave of deadly turf battles, ransom kidnappings and last fall’s two-month-long gang blockade of the country’s key fuel terminal. For the first time since the deadly Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake forced cancellation of the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival, just days before showtime, the show was once again on hiatus as the couple finally pulled the plug after postponing the event several times last year in hopes that Haiti’s crisis would finally ease.
“All of those other years, there were riots, elections, political upheavals and … we did it,” said Sandler, noting that the festival even took place amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “But in 2022, we couldn’t have it because of the kidnappings, and the gangs.”
