Savannah Music Festival

Savannah Music Festival
Saturday, Apr 8, 2023 at 12:30pm
912-234-3378

The Savannah Music Festival (SMF) is dedicated to presenting world-class celebrations of the musical arts by creating timeless and adventurous productions that stimulate arts education, foster economic growth and unite artists and audiences in Savannah.

Schedule:

12:30pm: NOON30: Téada

This is a mid-day encore performance by Irish traditional music band Téada featuring Oisín Mac Diarmada on fiddle, Paul Finn on accordion, Damien Stenson on flute, Seán McElwain on guitar and Tristan Rosenstock on bodhrán.

Approx. 1 hr 15 mins
$31.00

Location: Metal Building at Trustees' Garden

Buy Tickets:

2:00pm: Etienne Charles: Traces feat. Vincent Ségal, Jorge Glem and Or Baraket / Harold López-Nussa: Timba a la Americana feat. Gregoire Maret, Luques Curtis and Ruy Adrian López-Nussa

Hailed by The New York Times as “an auteur” and by JazzTimes as “a daring improviser who delivers with heart-wrenching lyricism,” Etienne Charles is also the Assistant Professor of Jazz Trumpet at Michigan State University. He has received critical acclaim for his exciting performances, thrilling compositions and knack for connecting with audiences worldwide. In June 2012, Charles was written into the US Congressional Record for his musical contributions to Trinidad and Tobago and the world. Perhaps more than any other musician of his generation or Eastern Caribbean origin, Charles brings a careful study of myriad rhythms from the French, Spanish, English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean to the table. With Traces, Etienne Charles enlists the endless talents and inventiveness of cellist Vincent Ségal, cuatro player Jorge Glem and bassist Or Baraket.

Harold López-Nussa was born in 1983 in Havana, Cuba. His father is an esteemed drummer and educator, his uncle an acclaimed pianist and his late mother, Mayra Torres, a highly-regarded piano teacher. At age eight, López-Nussa began studying at the Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, then went to the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, ultimately graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de Arte. Early in his career, he recorded Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Fourth Piano Concerto with Cuba’s National Symphony Orchestra and won First Prize at the Jazz Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, in 2005. Today, his tightly-knit band captivates audiences with a relentless vivaciousness that “bridges generations and genres” (Billboard). Harold Lopéz-Nussa’s Timba a la Americana features harmonica player Grégoire Maret, bassist Luques Curtis and his brother Ruy Adrian López-Nussa on drums.

Pianos by Steinway and Sons | A Faircloth Jazz Series Performance

Approx. 2 hrs 15 mins
$46.00

Location: Charles H. Morris Center

Buy Tickets

5:30pm: Etienne Charles: Traces feat. Vincent Ségal, Jorge Glem and Or Baraket / Harold López-Nussa: Timba a la Americana feat. Gregoire Maret, Luques Curtis and Ruy Adrian López-Nussa

Hailed by The New York Times as “an auteur” and by JazzTimes as “a daring improviser who delivers with heart-wrenching lyricism,” Etienne Charles is also the Assistant Professor of Jazz Trumpet at Michigan State University. He has received critical acclaim for his exciting performances, thrilling compositions and knack for connecting with audiences worldwide. In June 2012, Charles was written into the US Congressional Record for his musical contributions to Trinidad and Tobago and the world. Perhaps more than any other musician of his generation or Eastern Caribbean origin, Charles brings a careful study of myriad rhythms from the French, Spanish, English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean to the table. With Traces, Etienne Charles enlists the endless talents and inventiveness of cellist Vincent Ségal, cuatro player Jorge Glem and bassist Or Baraket.

Harold López-Nussa was born in 1983 in Havana, Cuba. His father is an esteemed drummer and educator, his uncle an acclaimed pianist and his late mother, Mayra Torres, a highly-regarded piano teacher. At age eight, López-Nussa began studying at the Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, then went to the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, ultimately graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de Arte. Early in his career, he recorded Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Fourth Piano Concerto with Cuba’s National Symphony Orchestra and won First Prize at the Jazz Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, in 2005. Today, his tightly-knit band captivates audiences with a relentless vivaciousness that “bridges generations and genres” (Billboard). Harold Lopéz-Nussa’s Timba a la Americana features harmonica player Grégoire Maret, bassist Luques Curtis and his brother Ruy Adrian López-Nussa on drums.

Pianos by Steinway and Sons | A Faircloth Jazz Series Performance

Approx. 2 hrs 15 mins
$46.00

Location: Charles H. Morris Center

Buy Tickets

6:00pm: Zydeco Dance Party: Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys

One of the most influential accordionists and vocalists in modern zydeco music, Jeffery Broussard continues to be one of the genre’s most dynamic performers. Broussard began his career with traditional zydeco music playing drums in his father’s band, Delton Broussard and The Lawtell Playboys. After developing the nouveau zydeco sound as a member of the band  Zydeco Force, he is now returning to a more traditional sound with his own band, Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys. Broussard has a range seldom seen in zydeco—from traditional songs of old masters to originals, from single-note and triple-note accordion to fiddle. Whether he is playing a festival stage in front of thousands of dancers, a small theater of seated patrons, giving an interview or teaching a lesson, his warmth, love of the music and talent shine. Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys last performed at SMF in 2016, in addition to being the zydeco artist for SMF’s K-2 music education program, Musical Explorers (see page 50).

Approx. 1 hr 15 mins
$39.00

Location: Metal Building at Trustees' Garden

Buy Tickets

6:00pm: Drew Petersen, Piano

Chopin
Étude in A-flat Major, Opus 25, No. 1
Étude in F minor, Opus 25, No. 2
Étude in F Major Opus 25, No. 3
Étude in F Major Opus 10, No. 8

Ravel
Gaspard de la Nuit

Schumann
Fantasie in C Major, Opus 17

Acclaimed young American pianist Drew Petersen is a sought-after soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He has been praised for his commanding and poetic performances of repertoire ranging from Bach to Zaimont, and is the recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2017 American Pianists Award and the Christel DeHaan Fellow of the American Pianists Association. In solo recital Petersen has appeared at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Brevard Music Center’s Summer Festival and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, among many others. A champion of chamber music, Petersen has appeared on French radio’s France Musique while a member of a Verbier Festival piano trio. 2018 marked the release of his first solo recording of music by Barber, Carter, and other American composers on the Steinway and Sons label for which BBC Music Magazine acknowledged his presence as a rising star. This is his SMF debut.

Pianos by Steinway and Sons

Approx. 1 hr
$52.00

Location: Trinity United Methodist Church

Buy Tickets

7:30pm: Cécile McLorin Salvant / San Salvador

Born in Miami in 1989, Cécile McLorin Salvant studied piano beginning at age 5, sang in a children’s choir at 8, and then began classical voice lessons. She pursued dual tracks as an undergraduate in France (her mother is French, her father Haitian)—studying French law at one university while attending the Darius Milhaud Conservatory studying baroque music and jazz. Though at the time she didn’t intend to sing professionally, she entered the Thelonious Monk competition in 2010 and won. Salvant has won Grammy Awards for three consecutive albums, received the Doris Duke Artist Award and became a MacArthur Fellow, all while relentlessly developing her artistic conception. Salvant has a passion for storytelling, in particular for finding connections between vaudeville, blues, traditional music, theater, jazz and Baroque music. This unique co-bill pairs Cécile McLorin Salvant with San Salvador, who sing in Occitan, one of her three heritage languages.

Occitan polyphony is the starting point for San Salvador, the six-voice and percussion collective. The ensemble embarks on the search for universal folklore, rooted in the deep troubadour traditions of the region yet circulating between cultures and musical genres. Their compositions use the Occitan language as a rhythmic instrument, combining poetry with hypnotic vocal harmonies cascading over shifting patterns of compelling percussion. San Salvador questions the myth of an unalterable heritage. It is a joyful quest that sees them following every path from the crossroads of trance, choral punk, global vocalese and math-rock constructions.

Pianos by Steinway and Sons | A Faircloth Jazz Series Performance

Approx. 2 hrs
Tickets start at $37

Location: Lucas Theatre for the Arts

Buy Tickets

9:00pm: Zydeco Dance Party: Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys

One of the most influential accordionists and vocalists in modern zydeco music, Jeffery Broussard continues to be one of the genre’s most dynamic performers. Broussard began his career with traditional zydeco music playing drums in his father’s band, Delton Broussard and The Lawtell Playboys. After developing the nouveau zydeco sound as a member of the band  Zydeco Force, he is now returning to a more traditional sound with his own band, Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys. Broussard has a range seldom seen in zydeco—from traditional songs of old masters to originals, from single-note and triple-note accordion to fiddle. Whether he is playing a festival stage in front of thousands of dancers, a small theater of seated patrons, giving an interview or teaching a lesson, his warmth, love of the music and talent shine. Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys last performed at SMF in 2016, in addition to being the zydeco artist for SMF’s K-2 music education program, Musical Explorers (see page 50).

Approx. 1 hr 15 mins
$39.00

Location: Metal Building at Trustees' Garden

Buy Tickets


Select a Georgia town to find
the Best Things-To-Do and Places To Go around you
Appling County
Bacon County
Baker County
Ben Hill County
Bibb County
Bleckley County
Candler County
Chattahoochee County
Crisp County
Dawson County
Dougherty County
Echols County
Forsyth County
Glascock County
Hancock County
Heard County
Jeff Davis County
Jenkins County
Johnson County
Jones County
Lincoln County
Long County
Lumpkin County
Marion County
Miller County
Paulding County
Pulaski County
Putnam County
Quitman County
Rockdale County
Schley County
Taliaferro County
Toombs County
Treutlen County
Webster County
Wheeler County