SMF Live

Stories of child prodigies in the world of music have a long history, going back to such luminaries as Mozart, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn. Jazz pianist Joey Alexander was discovered in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2012 around the age of eight. Joey might be the most talked-about young musician that jazz has seen in decades. He…

Balsam Range is an award-winning bluegrass band named after the majestic mountain range in their home of Haywood County, where the Smokies meet the Blue Ridge. They perform finely crafted songs with tightly woven harmonies, and have established themselves as one of the most in-demand ensembles in bluegrass. This episode features their 2015 performance at…

Composer Franz Schubert is perhaps the single instance of a great artist whose outer life had no affinity or connection with art. His career was simple and uneventful, so out of all proportion with the works which he created like a heaven-sent genius, that we must at last turn to them mainly if we would…

As with the symphony and the string quartet, the piano trio was inherited by Beethoven and transformed into a vehicle for the most deeply felt musical expression. In this episode, we listen to the second half of the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Trios, performed by David Finckel, Wu Han and Philip Setzer at the…

In the mid-1870s when Johannes Brahms served on the jury of the Austrian state stipendium, he encountered a submission from an obscure Czech composer whose mastery and talent overwhelmed him. Brahms immediately became a huge supporter of Antonin Dvorák, and also arranged for some of Dvorák’s work to be given to his own publisher. The…

Flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo made his southeastern U.S. debut at the 2016 Savannah Music Festival. This episode is part two of two.

As with the symphony and the string quartet, the piano trio was inherited by Beethoven and transformed into a vehicle for the most deeply felt musical expression. In this episode, we listen to the first half of the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Trios, performed by David Finckel, Wu Han and Philip Setzer at the…

The flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo, from Seville, Spain, has called his engagement with his instrument “beloved torture.” You can imagine why when you hear him play: he reachers for depth of expression within ultimate precision, and sometimes at breathtaking speed. In this episode, we listen to Vicente Amigo’s Savannah debut. Part one of two.

She’s been called the finest jazz singer to emerge in this century, with a voice often compared to Sarah Vaughan. She draws from a range of sources, and she collects songs like some people collect coins. In March of 2016, we brought Cecile McLorin Salvant for a return appearance at our festival along with the…

At our 2016 festival, the Danish String Quartet made their debut appearance with three separate concert performances and a master class for young string players. They played with the Swedish trio Väsen, as part of the Daniel Hope & Friends chamber music series, and on their own independent chamber music program. In this episode, we…

The very finest musicians always seem to effortlessly deliver jazz standards and originals to audiences, making it clear that a great artist can also be an entertainer. Such is the case with the 70-year old Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander, who grew up in Kingston, where performances by Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole left a…

Since her breakout win at the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition at the age of 21 in 2010, Cecile McLorin Salvant has emerged as one of the great jazz singers of the past 40 years. In style and voice, she has been compared with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, all of whom…

Nearly every year during the Savannah Music Festival, a highlight of our Swing Central Jazz high school jazz band workshop and competition is a jam session featuring the faculty and clinicians in attendance. The event typically serves as a wrap party, and a house band occupies the bandstand while inviting guest musicians on stage throughout…

When tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander made his debut recording as a leader in 1992 at the age of 25, many jazz writers dubbed him a “young lion” and a musician on his way up. That was nearly 25 years and more than 20 years ago. In the spring of 2016, Alexander brought his longtime quartet…

As an anthropologist of traditional songwriting, Rhiannon Giddens aims to take listeners on a journey of American roots music. She earned her college degree at Oberlin and trained to be an opera singer, but the North Carolina native sings blues, folk, field hollers and other styles of Americana music with deeply felt authenticity. In this…

In the Spring of 2016, jazz guitarist Randy Napoleon was at our festival premiering “He Said, She Said” featuring jazz singers Freddy Cole and Rene Marie. As the guitarist and musical director of Freddy Cole’s group, Randy was an essential component for the project, along with rhythm section mates Quentin Baxter and Elias Bailey. Having…

Irish traditional music has been around for centuries and has always included an array of drinking songs, ballads and laments, as well as traditional dance tunes including reels, hornpipes and jigs. The past century has seen a great blend of musicians drawn to the sounds of Irish music from both sides of the Atlantic. In…

With one hundred and forty-five collective years between them, Del McCoury and David Grisman have both become masters of Americana music. While each of these men have performed at SMF on numerous occasions, this was the first time they ever took the stage as the duo “Del & Dawg.” In this episode, we listen to…

Aaron Diehl is a 30-year-old jazz pianist whose broad aesthetic palette ranges from ragtime to stride piano to the works of George Gershwin and Phillip Glass. In responding to an interviewer about styles in jazz, Aaron Diehl once stated, “a lot of times we look at jazz in eras, but how can we not keep…

A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet or musician. The griot, referred to as a djeli in some countries, is a repository of oral tradition. The griot is also a living archive of the people’s traditions, and the virtuoso talents of the griots command universal admiration. In this episode, we listen…

The name DakhaBrakha means “give/take” in the old Ukranian language. Reflecting the fundamental elements of sound and soul, the Ukranian “ethnic chaos” band DakhaBrakha creates a world of unexpected new music, like nothing you’ve ever heard before. In this episode, we listen to their SMF debut, a closing night concert from the 2015 Savannah Music…

While Franz Schubert is the only major composer of the 18th and 19th centuries who was actually born in Vienna, the First Viennese School is the name that commonly refers to the main composers of the Classical Period in western art music that resided there. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, represent as the name says…

While many fans of bluegrass music date the genre to 1939, when Bill Monroe first formed his blue grass boys band, most believe that the classic bluegrass sound came together in late 1945, shortly after North Carolina banjo player Earl Scruggs joined the band at age 21. Seven decades later, there are many excellent bluegrass…

The vibraphone, also known as the vibraharp, or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family. Jazz is the only genre of music that uses the vibraphone as a lead or improvisational instrument, which has helped make it one of the most beautiful and versatile choices in…

Ellis and Delores Marsalis began to cultivate their youngest son’s interest in music at age three, after buying him a toy drum set. They played a game with him and introduced him to an imaginary crowd by saying “ladies and gentlemen, introducing the fabulous Jason!” The young boy would come out and start banging away…

Most singers begin their careers in childhood, developing their voice and style through training, practice and performance. It’s unusual to hear a singer who didn’t begin performing professionally until the age of 42, and even more rare when they are talented, unpretentious and original. In the Spring of 2013, jazz singer René Marie brought her…

The great musician, bandleader, composer and arranger Benny Carter was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who simply called him “king.” In the Spring of 2015, jazz cornetist Warren Vache brought an all-star quintet to Savannah to perform the music of…

The Band Courtbouillon is a Cajun band featuring Wayne Toups, Steve Riley and Wilson Savoy. What began as a project by three of Southwest Louisiana’s preeminent accordion players became a widely-praised traditional Cajun music album that won them a Grammy Award. At the 2015 Savannah Music Festival, The Band Courtbouillon played two spirited sets at…

It all started when Ray Benson and some of his buddies joined forces in the early 1970s and created a band with one simple goal: to play and help revive American roots music. The band that Benson founded over 40 years ago is called Asleep at the Wheel, and they are still going strong today….

Within the space of two years, singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash lost her mother, her father Johnny Cash, and her stepmother June Carter – deaths that she wrestled with through recordings made in 2008 and 2010. In 2014, she took a longer view of life with a recording called The River & the Thread. Through these deeply…

It didn’t take long after Tim O’Brien, Pete Wernick, Nick Forster and Charles Sawtelle first appeared on stage together in 1978 for the bluegrass music world to realize that Hot Rize was something special. Steeped in bluegrass tradition, Hot Rize’s music was equally informed by a taste for the music of Leadbelly and Freddie King,…

Though they only met on one occasion, French composer Camille Saint-Saëns and German composer Max Bruch were born two years apart in the 1830s and died only one year apart in the early 1920s. Each man had a prominent musical career and composed prolifically in a wide range of instrumental and vocal genres, including some…

Gustav Mahler was a student in Vienna when he wrote his first piano quartet at age 16, showing remarkable technical ingenuity and emotional passion. Mahler assimilated the influences of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms to create a work of distinctive profile, only 15 years after Brahms created two of the greatest piano quartets in the literature….

In the late 19th century, Paris was an incredibly vibrant musical city. Alongside its nearly unrivaled musical scene, composers such as Saint-Saëns, Franck, Massenet, Faure, Debussy and Ravel had developed a veritable renaissance of French music. In this second part of a two-hour program featuring chamber music performances from the 2015 Savannah Music Festival, we…

Although Paris remained one of the paramount musical centers of Europe, French music during the 19th century was eclipsed by German and Austrian music, and by Italian opera. However, by the mid to late 19th century, the foundations for a renaissance of French music started taking place with such composers as Franck, Saint-Saëns, Massenet and…