New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), located in downtown Newark, New Jersey, is among the largest performing arts centers in the United States. It is the artistic, cultural, educational and civic center of New Jersey — where great performances and events enhance and transform lives every day. NJPAC has attracted more than 11 million visitors (including more than two million children) since opening its doors in 1997, and nurtures meaningful and lasting relationships with each of its constituents. Visit www.njpac.org for more information.

#1 Jazz Club in NYC - SecretNYC

Located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side at the junction of Broadway and 106th Street (aka Duke Ellington Boulevard), Smoke Jazz Club is one of New York City’s premier live music venues. Renowned for offering top-notch programming of accessible, timeless jazz featuring legendary performers, modern masters and rising stars, Smoke stands apart with its candlelit dining room, stellar acoustics, and classic American cuisine. Founded in 1999, SMOKE also boasts a GRAMMY-nominated label, Smoke Sessions Records, and a celebrated streaming concert series, Smoke Screens. For everything else, visit SMOKEjazz.com.

The Grammy Award-winning Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Each season, Gil Rose brings BMOP’s award-winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory’s historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unrivaled eclecticism. Musical America’s 2016 Ensemble of the Year, BMOP was awarded the 2021 Special Achievement Award from Gramophone Magazine as “an organization that has championed American music of the 20th and 21st century with passion and panache.” BMOP.org

New to The Gilmore as of February 2022, The Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Awards will be modeled after the classical Gilmore Artist and Gilmore Young Artist Awards, and will provide some of the most generous financial support given in the musical arts.  The Jazz Awards program has been established with an $8 million gift to The Gilmore’s endowment and is named for Kalamazoo businessman and President of the Gilmore International Piano Festival Board of Trustees, Larry J. Bell, who founded Bell’s Brewery in 1985. TheGIlmore.org

Founded in 2016 by Asian-American Opera Maker Cerise Lim Jacobs, White Snake Projects (WSP) is an activist opera company making mission-driven work that unites artmaking with civic practice. Its inaugural production, on the theme of multiculturalism, was the Ouroborous Trilogy: Naga (composer Scott Wheeler), Madame White Snake (winner of Pulitzer Prize in Music for composition by Zhou Long), and Gilgamesh (composer Paolo Prestini). In 2022, WSP received a three-year capacity building grant from Mellon Foundation for “their desire to combine a long-enduring art form and experimental technologies into contemporary narratives on behalf of a broadly diverse public.” 2022 also marked the launch of Tutti Remote Suite, WSP’s cutting-edge performance software that the Wall Street Journal described as “a remarkable new environment for operatic experimentation.” WhiteSnakeProjects.org

One of today’s leading jazz labels, SMOKE Sessions Records celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2025. Recent releases have included George Coleman, George Cables, Eric Scott Reed, Nicholas Payton, Renee Rosnes, Wayne Escoffery, The Cookers, Peter Bernstein, and more. SMOKEsessions.com

Pianist, composer, and arranger John Beasley has built a genre-spanning career bridging jazz, classical, pop, and film/TV music. A musical shapeshifter with deep jazz roots, he rose to prominence in his 20s performing with Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard, and has since collaborated with artists including Dianne Reeves, Christian McBride, Chaka Khan, Chucho Valdés, and Steely Dan.

Beasley’s acclaimed recordings include the 2x GRAMMY® winning, 14x nominated MONK’estra trilogy, Bird Lives, Returning to Forever, El Trio, Maria Mendes, andPositootly! and two Latin GRAMMY nominations, reflecting his wide-ranging impact as both a composer, arranger, and producer.

As Music Director for the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, Beasley leads the globally broadcast International Jazz Day gala concerts, staged in cities including Istanbul, Havana, Osaka, and Tangier, with Chicago hosting in 2026. His musical direction for Jazz at the White House earned an Emmy nomination.

BMOP/sound, BMOP’s independent record label, was created in 2008 to provide a platform for BMOP’s extensive archive of music, as well as to provide widespread, top-quality, permanent access to both classics of the 20th century and the music of today’s most innovative composers. It is the recipient of a 2020 Grammy Award for Tobias Picker: Fantastic Mr. Fox as well as eight Grammy Award nominations, and its releases have appeared on the year-end “Best of” lists of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Time Out New York, American Record Guide, DownBeat, WBUR, NewMusicBox, and others. Admired, praised, and sought after by artists, presenters, critics, and audiophiles, BMOP and BMOP/sound are uniquely positioned to redefine the new music concert and recording experience. Launched in 2019, BMOP's digital radio station, BMOP/radio, streams BMOP/sound's entire catalog and airs special programming. BMOP.org

Founded in 2013 by artistic director/conductor Gil Rose, Odyssey Opera presents adventurous and eclectic works that affirm opera as a powerful expression of the human experience. Hailed by The New York Times as “one of the nation’s most intriguing opera companies,” its world-class artists perform the operatic repertoire from its historic beginnings through lesser-known masterpieces to contemporary new works and commissions in varied formats and venues. Most recently, it was nominated for a 2023 Grammy “Best Opera Recording” for its “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” album. OdysseyOpera.org

TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW FOR THE 2026 STANFORD JAZZ FESTIVAL

JUNE 21–JULY 31 • 25 EXTRAORDINARY CONCERTS FEATURING THE BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET, BILLY CHILDS, LUCIANA SOUZA, ANAT COHEN, STEFON HARRIS, YILIAN CAÑIZARES, AND MORE.

Praised by The New York Times as an “excellent chorus” and “a treasured institution (Front Row Center),” Musica Viva NY is a superb chamber choir and world class collaborating instrumentalists making their concert home at Manhattan’s historic All Souls NYC. Musica Viva NY is a non-profit arts organization that was established nearly fifty years ago. Its mission is to bring world-class music to a wide community through an annual concert series, an active community engagement program, and an ambitious artistic vision. Under the baton of Artistic Director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez since 2015, Musica Viva NY strives to offer joy, solace and renewal in a complex world by presenting new compositions and classic masterworks in transformative interpretations that ennoble the human spirit. MusicaViva.org

The Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, also known as “The SASSY Awards”, is hosted every year by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). What has become one of the top annual vocal competitions in jazz, The SASSY Awards offers outstanding jazz singers a one-of-a-kind platform for embarking on a career in the music business—and offers audience members a chance to discover the jazz stars of tomorrow. Past winners have included: Cyrille Aimée, Jazzmeia Horn, Quiana Lynell, Laurin Talese, Samara Joy, Tyreek McDole, and more.

An international award-winning harpist and composer, Kirsten Agresta-Copely is celebrating her recent 2024 “Best New Age/Chant/Ambient Album” Grammy Award nomination for her latest album Aquamarine. She for is hailed for her charismatic, telegenic presence on stage and known as the industry’s go-to harpist in the recording studio. An omnivorous artist steeped in rigorous classical training, Kirsten has performed with today’s leading artists including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Enya, The Roots, Lady Gaga, and Andrea Bocelli, to name a few. Her contributions to the world of music education are equally significant, having held esteemed positions at Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music and Sarah Lawrence College.

Hailed as one of this era’s most adventurous interpreters of the classical organ repertoire, leading female organist Gail Archer is an international concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor and lecturer. Ms. Archer was the first American woman to play the complete works of Olivier Messiaen for the centennial of the composer's birth in 2008. According to Gramophone Magazine, she has “superb musicianship, masterly technique and programming savvy.” She is the founder of Musforum, an international network for women organists to promote and affirm their work. Ms. Archer is college organist at Vassar College, director of the music program at Barnard College, Columbia University, She is artistic director at historic Central Synagogue, New York City. GailArcher.com