Leisure Travelers

A festival within the festival. Bach's exhilarating Brandenburg Concertos—bursting with color, virtuosity, and fearless invention—take center stage across two vibrant programs that celebrate the joy of collaboration. Alongside these Baroque landmarks, music by our Composer-in-Residence Paul Wiancko and our Ensemble-in-Residence Imani Winds brings fresh energy to the conversation, proving that...

Cellist-composer Paul Wiancko—a member of the legendary Kronos Quartet—curates a concert that puts creativity front and center. Part salon, part sonic lab, this intimate set with festival artists brings you up close to the energy of a musician actively making history now.

A festival within the festival. Bach's exhilarating Brandenburg Concertos—bursting with color, virtuosity, and fearless invention—take center stage across two vibrant programs that celebrate the joy of collaboration. Alongside these Baroque landmarks, music by our Composer-in-Residence Paul Wiancko and our Ensemble-in-Residence Imani Winds brings fresh energy to the conversation, proving that...

In the shadow of the First World War, composers faced a world irrevocably changed. From Debussy's starkly ravishing two-piano piece and Bridge's elegiac lament to Poulenc's sardonically defiant wit, this program reveals how upheaval reshaped musical language—culminating in Korngold's Suite for Left Hand, written for a war amputee and transforming...

Returning to SummerFest after last season's electrifying collaboration with Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sullivan Fortner—one of today's most celebrated jazz pianists and a recent recipient of the Gilmore Jazz Pianist Award—brings his incredible trio to The JAI.

What does it mean to make history in America? At the Library of Congress, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge transformed a national institution into a catalyst for chamber music, commissioning and championing not only American composers but many of the greatest international voices of her time. This program reflects that expansive spirit—celebrating...

Great music sometimes slips from view—unfinished, unpublished, or simply forgotten—until history rediscovers it. From Chopin's recently uncovered Waltz to Vaughan Williams's nearly lost Piano Quintet, from a reconstructed gem by Mozart to a lush Octet by Charles Martin Loeffler recently brought back to light at the Library of Congress, this...

Feel the pulse of Eastern Europe in music drawn from village dances, folk songs, and centuries-old traditions. Composers channel the raw vitality of these sounds into works of sweeping drama and rhythmic fire—music that carries the spirit of the countryside onto the concert stage.

Encounters with Eastern music left a lasting mark on Western composers, from the sounds of gamelan heard by Debussy at the World Fair to Lou Harrison and John Cage's lifelong fascination with Javanese and Indian sounds, culminating in a newly created chamber work based on Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

Musical history moves forward through dialogue with the past. From Stravinsky's reimagining of baroque styles to Schubert's epic Octet—written in the shadow of Beethoven—this program explores how composers absorb, reshape, and transform what came before, creating works that honor tradition while forging new paths.