Summer Music Festivals Continue
The Rochester International Jazz Festival wrapped up while other summer music festivals are underway.
The Rochester International Jazz Festival wrapped up on Saturday, June 27, featuring more than 300 performances over nine days and attracting approximately 211,000 people. On a backdrop of perfect weather, the final night of the festival ranged from traditional swing (Count Basie Orchestra) to New Orleans party music (Trombone Shorty). And the night ended on a note of discovery for me, which is apropos for a festival with an “it’s not who you know” ethos.
You can read more about it:
Closing Day of the 2026 Rochester International Jazz Festival
Greg Bell at JazzRochester also had a comprehensive roundup of the festival that examined some of its changes (including thoughts on the new Wegmans Pavilion, which I agree is a great new community space). And audio engineer Scott Fybush wrote an entertaining reflection on the festival's final night on Jazz90.1’s Facebook page. The three of us have been, in a sense, a small editorial team, filling in reflections on concerts the others couldn’t get to and adding to the discourse on the ones we collectively heard. It’s all to say that critical discourse is strengthened when more of us participate, which in turn strengthens our arts institutions, so I hope you will also find your own ways to participate in conversations about Rochester’s arts scene.
The United States celebrated 250 years as a nation this past weekend, and several local performances took place around the milestone, including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at the Constellation Brands Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center (CMAC), complete with fireworks. I hope wherever you were, you took a moment to reflect on our nation’s history and the foundation of freedom and democracy upon which our nation was built. In observance of the anniversary, the musical community has already focused on American works since the start of 2026, but American music will continue as a thematic center through the summer and into the fall arts season.
If the end of the jazz festival has you missing roaming the downtown corridor, there’s more: The RPO performs a free concert on Friday evening (July 10, 6 p.m.–10 p.m.) at Parcel 5. It will be conducted by the up-and-coming pops conductor Evan Roider, who led an RPO pops concert in a Broadway program this past spring.
Rochester Overture is currently on a field trip to Tanglewood, the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I heard a BSO concert built around the towering and almost mythological figure Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president who abolished slavery. The concert included a long-anticipated premiere of a Philip Glass Symphony based on Lincoln texts, a suite comprising selections from John Williams’s score to Lincoln, and Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, with actor Alec Baldwin narrating. And in a surprise discovery, the Lincoln texts in the Glass symphony were sung by baritone Zachary James, a winner of the 2009 Lotte Lenya Competition, held each year in Rochester by the Kurt Weill Foundation.
I also took in several thought-provoking visual and sonic experiences in a short diversion to MASS MoCA, and will participate in a sound meditation with sound bowls at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. An article detailing these sonic/creative experiences for those in Rochester looking for a culture-filled summer destination will be out soon after.
Before my report on my Berkshires trip comes out, with an overview of what’s on tap at Tanglewood for the rest of the summer, I do want to alert audiences that Eastman School of Music alumna, Beverly Sills Award winner, and Grammy-winning soprano Erin Morley will perform on the final movement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the BSO and its music director, Andris Nelsons, this coming weekend, on July 11, at Tanglewood. She shares the program with pianist Emanuel Ax, who performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25. Because it’s coming up soon, I want to be sure those interested hear about it before I post something more formal about the Tanglewood season.
Excursions are fun, but I’ll soon be back in Rochester to cover the wealth of local and regional summer events that add to our glorious, if short, summers. (That is, when there’s not a heat dome oppressing our city.) That includes ChamberFest Canandaigua and the Skaneateles Festival, among other events throughout the summer. I hope you’ll keep reading, and I’ll send out updates on new articles as they drop.
Thanks again for reading!
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With much gratitude,
Anna Reguero
Founding Editor, Rochester Overture