BERGAMO JAZZ 2026
Artistic Direction by Joe Lovano
“Setting The Pace: Miles & Trane 100th Celebration!

The complete program of the 47th edition
March 19-22, 2026

Concerts in theaters, museums and venues around the city
Meetings with cinema and art, lectures-concerts for schools

Concerts in theaters, museums, venues, encounters with the visual arts, lessons-concerts for schools: after announcing last October the appointments at Teatro Donizetti and Teatro Sociale, the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti now presents the complete program of the 47th edition of Bergamo Jazz, which for four days, from March 19 to 22, will spread the thousand sounds of jazz throughout the city. The Festival is organized with the support of the City of Bergamo, MIC-Ministry of Culture, private sponsors and as usual sees the collaboration with numerous institutions and associations in the area,

Setting The Pace, dictating the pace or setting the pace, is the title chosen by Joe Lovano, for the third time Artistic Director of Bergamo Jazz, in highlighting an extraordinary anniversary: the centenary of the birth of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, seminal and iconic figures in African-American music and culture. Keeping true to its nature, Bergamo Jazz 2026 will also be a festival with an international scope, a mirror of the many souls that cohabit in the world of jazz music, between references to tradition and innovative projections. More than 80 guest artists, with a significant representation of Italian musicians, including many young talents, and a consolidated presence of jazz conjugated to women. It will be a widespread festival-with important new locations-that will bring jazz music into contact with the fabric of the city, infecting it with its spirit of adventure, with its universal message of peace and dialogue between different peoples. A timely and necessary message, especially in complex times like the ones we are living.

Jazz at Donizetti

On Friday, March 20, the first of three subscription evenings at Teatro Donizetti, beginning at 8:30 p.m., beloved by both Bergamo residents and those from all over Italy and beyond, will be opened by the duo formed by double bass ace Dave Holland and Lionel Loueke, one of the most innovative guitarists to appear on the jazz scene in recent decades. Holland and Loueke will serve as “openers” for Steve Coleman and his Five Elements: the Chicago saxophonist will return to Bergamo exactly 20 years after his previous performance to offer his well-rehearsed blend of visionary funk in which the most imaginative improvisation is interpenetrated with rigorous compositional structures.

The next evening, Bergamo Jazz 2026 will offer for listening one of the groups of the moment, Bad Plus, in a special edition that will feature its two founding members, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King, joined by saxophonist Chris Potter and pianist Craig Taborn, or two other giants of contemporary jazz in their respective instrumental specificities. Central to the quartet’s music will be compositions written by Keith Jarrett for his glorious American Quartet, the one in which the Allentown pianist dialogued with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

Next, we will greet the return of Lakecia Benjamin after her highly successful participation in the Festival in 2023: the New York saxophonist will present her new album, on the strength of her five Grammy nominations in a short time.

The third and final subscription evening will focus entirely on the special project conceived by Joe Lovano himself to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. On the Donizetti stage will take to the stage, bringing to life different instrumental and musical combinations, trumpeter Avishai Cohen, a highly refined soloist akin to Miles Davis’ poetics; saxophonist George Garzone, one of Coltrane’s deepest connoisseurs; Briton Shabaka Hutchings, among the strongest personalities of the new jazz and on the occasion in the guise of flutist; and Danish Jakob Bro, who will harness the guitar with his usual refined but incisive style. At the piano will sit Leo Genovese, while the roles of bassist and drummer will be filled respectively by Drew Gress and Joey Baron, constituting one of the best rhythm sections imaginable today.

Tickets for individual evenings on sale from January 28.

Jazz at the Social

Also in 2026 there are two appointments at the Teatro Sociale in Città Alta, the first of which, on the evening of Thursday, March 19 (8:30 p.m.), will first offer the new trio of pianist Franco D’Andrea, excellence of jazz made in Italy, who will have at his side two exceptional companions in adventure such as double bassist Gabriele Evangelista and drummer Roberto Gatto. The same evening will feature the quartet of Chilean saxophonist Melissa Aldana, whose brilliant technical background is well balanced by a personal stylistic signature.

On Sunday 22 (at 5 p.m.) the Festival will open to the sophisticated mix of songwriting and jazz by Simona Molinari and her show “La Donna è Mobile,” a musical and theatrical journey that tells the female figure through music and its infinite nuances, inspired by Verdi’s famous aria. On stage, alongside the singer, an all-female band composed of musicians with vast experience in various musical fields: saxophonist and flutist Chiara Lucchini, pianist Sade Mangiaracina, bassist Elisabetta Pasquale and drummer Francesca Remigi from Bergamo.

Ongoing ticket sales.

Jazz In The City

Not only the city’s main theaters, but also museums and small theaters: the link between Bergamo Jazz and the city is increasingly close and strong, thanks to events that find a home in evocative locations rich in history. First of all, this year, the Aula Picta of the Palazzo Vescovile, in Piazza Duomo: in this unprecedented venue for jazz, two pianists, American Wayne Horvitz, an exponent of the most advanced jazz, and Argentine Leo Genovese, rising star of the 88 keys, will dialogue with themselves and their instrument, respectively on Thursday, March 19 (6 p.m.) and the morning of the 22nd (11 a.m.).

On Saturday 21, however, the traditional concert at the Accademia Carrara (11 a.m.) will take place: among the paintings of the city’s largest museum, violinist Anaïs Drago will perform with her Trio Relevé. As usual, music will also be heard in the beautiful Sala Piatti in Città Alta: in this precious concert hall ideal for chamber music, the voice-piano duo formed by Norma Winstone, a charismatic figure of cross-Channel jazz since the 1960s, and Kit Downes, among the most interesting European pianists of the latest generations, is scheduled for Sunday 22 (3 p.m.).

A new location for Bergamo Jazz, along with the Aula Picta, is the Palazzolo Institute Auditorium: here the U.S.-based Jazz Passengers, a leading lineup of the downtown New York scene from the late 1980s onward (Friday 20 at 6 p.m.), and the power trio of Norwegian guitarist Hedwig Mollestad, who promises an explosive blend of improvisation and near-rock sounds (Saturday 21 at 5 p.m.), will perform.

Tickets for all these concerts will go on sale starting January 28.

Sparks of Jazz

Scintille di Jazz is the review, almost a small festival within the big festival, that for nine editions Bergamo Jazz has dedicated, with the artistic advice of Tino Tracanna, to new talents. Five concerts are on the bill distributed in various venues, starting with Circolino di Città Alta, which on Thursday 19 (6:30 p.m.) will feature the duo formed by pianist Simone Locarni and guitarist Gianluca Palazzo in action. The next day there will be a move to Dieci10 on Via Quarenghi (6:30 p.m.), where drummer Danièl Gaspàr Reynoso‘s group Nomads will perform.

Now a regular venue for Scintille di Jazz special events, Daste will host Tino Tracanna‘s Panorchestra on Saturday 21 (6:30 p.m.), a lineup that just won the monthly magazine Musica Jazz’s Top Jazz 2025 referendum for “best record of the year.”

For the 11 p.m. “After Festival,” there are two dates at NXT Bergamo in Piazzale Alpini: on Friday, 20, with Bergamo guitarist Marco Pasinetti‘s group Siphonoforo, and on Saturday, 21, with saxophonist Giacomo Cazzaro‘s quartet.

Intesa Sanpaolo is Special Partner of the Sparks of Jazz section.

All concerts are free admission subject to availability. Reservations are recommended.

Jazz meets film and art

The connection between jazz and cinema is renewed with the passing of the baton between Bergamo Film Meeting and Bergamo Jazz. On Sunday, March 15 (5:30 p.m.), the final day of the film festival, violinist Virginia Sutera will improvise on the images of the film Gräfin Küchenfee(The scullery maid turned countess) by Rudolf Biebrach, a 1918 comedy starring actress Henny Porten as two characters.

A few months after his death, Bergamo Jazz 2026 remembers painter and musician Gianni Bergamelli, an important figure in Bergamo’s jazz life and often the author of the festival’s posters. The exhibition features a selection of recent works in which Gianni Bergamelli’s art is unfailingly permeated by the sounds and scents of jazz: the title Leftovers of Balera is the one the Nembro artist himself had envisioned for his next exhibition.

Exhibition opening: Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 6 p.m. Open to the public: Wednesday, March 18 to Sunday, March 22, 2026, 6:30-8:30 pm. Free admission.

Let’s meet jazz

Unmissable, again this year, are the Meet the Jazz lecture-concerts organized in collaboration with Centro Didattico Produzione Musica, but with a significant novelty: the meetings will take place in the prestigious setting of the Social Theater on the mornings of Monday, March 16 and Tuesday, March 17.

Under the banner of “Improvisation at School,” the meetings aim to bring secondary and elementary school students closer to a world rich in fascination and history, through musical examples offered live drawing from the vast jazz repertoire.

Jazz classics will be performed by a large ensemble featuring Claudio Angeleri and Giovanni Panzeri on piano, Francesca Facchinetti on vocals, Safiye Haciogullari on violin, Beatrice Sisana on flute, Lorenzo Zanoli on clarinet, Alessandro Albani on baritone sax, Pietro Berti on guitar, Sofia Filippi on bass, and Giuseppe Cutuli on drums. Also scheduled is a talk by journalist Fabio Santini.

A special program entitled “Tutti quanti vogliono fare jazz” is planned for younger children, featuring the Gospel Choir of the IC Santa Lucia Primary School in Bergamo directed by Gabriele Capitanio, the Marchin’ band of the IC Camozzi directed by Lorenzo Roncelli, Claudio Angeleri on piano, singer Paola Milzani, Gabriele Comeglio on alto and soprano sax, Marco Esposito on bass and Matteo Milesi on drums. Acting voice Oreste Castagna on texts by Tiziana Sallese .

Water Itinerary

The collaboration between Bergamo Jazz and Uniacque, one of the main partners of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, is renewed again in 2026. The company that provides water service to Bergamo and its province cuts its 20th year this year: Itinerario dell’acqua, an initiative designed to help people discover or rediscover some of the most beautiful corners of Città Alta, is part of a series of events celebrating the anniversary. On the mornings of Saturday, March 21 and Sunday, March 22 (World Water Day), starting at 9 a.m. from Colle Aperto, it will be possible to walk along streets and alleys for about 3 kilometers, among cisterns, fountains, the historic washhouse on Via Mario Lupo and other notable sites. Some of the stages will be accompanied this year by musical moments, which will be performed by saxophonist Massimiliano Milesi and violinist and violist Daniele Richiedei, in solo or duo.

International Jazz Day

On Thursday, April 30, as has been the case for several years, Bergamo Jazz will celebrate International Jazz Day with a highly symbolic event near the Walls of Bergamo, a UNESCO-protected property that has sponsored International Jazz Day itself since 2011. At 6:30 p.m. in Piazza Mascheroni, guitarist Eleonora Strino, one of the new names in the six-string internationally, will lead her proven trio with Giulio Corini on double bass and Zeno De Rossi on drums. An event intended to emphasize the sharing values of jazz, reaffirming Bergamo Jazz’s connection with its local area.

Meetings with Schools and Sparks of Jazz are part of Youth Club, the initiative promoted by Fondazione Cariplo to foster the approach of younger generations to the performing arts.