Valeria Pernice wins first prize in this year's 'Restart' poster contest for the Montreux Jazz Festival

"It represents without concessions the emotion of the first cancellation in the history of the Montreux Jazz Festival, while energetically marking the promise to celebrate the event in 2021, against all odds," said Stefano Stoll, jury member and director of the Festival Images Vevey of Pernice's design. "By skillfully turning the press release of this sad April 17, 2020, into a positive message of recovery for 2021, this poster tells what everyone has intimately experienced this year: the desire to the past behind us and the strong will to bring life back."

Pernice also wins the Public Prize, awarded to the poster with the highest number of "likes" on the official Instagram account of the Montreux Jazz Festival.

In second place was Jamy Hermann for his poster submission that shows "a dark, mechanical universe of great visual density," as the jury puts it. "Then, the shapes stand out, bright, joyful and vibrant colours, which recall the reflections of the stage lights on the instruments during a concert. The jury was convinced by this aesthetic approach as well as by the technique used - the project being entirely produced in computer-generated graphics."

Finally, winning third place was Italian illustrator Federico Tramonte whose poster caught the attention of the jury for its "effective use of illustration" to create a composition full of "poetry and hope". As Malika Favre, president of the jury, illustrator and creator of the 2017 poster, remarks: "The eye is instantly drawn to the pianist and her light movement that evokes the first note in suspension, foretelling a new melody."

The 10 best posters were selected by a professional jury, chaired by graphic artist and designer of the 2017 Festival poster Malika Favre, Stefano Stoll, Director of the Festival Images in Vevey, and Alexis Georgacopoulos, Director of the Lausanne ECAL/École Cantonale d’Art (University of Art and Design). In this shortlist, each poster will be printed and sold on the festival's website and for each poster sold, the artist concerned will receive a 20% commission on sales.

A total of 30 works will also be exhibited during the 55th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival: the 10 posters chosen by the professional jury, as well as 20 additional posters selected by an internal jury of the Festival and Vaudoise Assurances.