The Savannah Music Festival is dedicated to presenting a world-class celebration of the musical arts by creating timeless and adventurous productions that stimulate arts education, foster economic growth, and unite artists and audiences in Savannah. It is the largest musical arts event in Georgia and one of the most distinctive cross-genre music festivals in the world.
Since 2003, the Savannah Music Festival has grown a music education program that is unlike that of any arts organization in the region. It is rooted in our belief that the arts are fundamental to the cognitive, affective, physical and intellectual development of all children. These programs reach more than 20,000 youth each year throughout Savannah and the surrounding five counties.
There are many meaningful ways to get involved with the Savannah Music Festival. The success of our organization is driven by a supportive community of patrons, interns, volunteers and partner organizations. Find out how you can get involved.
Each year, ticket sales amount to only 40% of SMF’s annual $3 million budget. As a non-profit organization, generous support from dedicated individuals, corporations, government entities and foundations enables us to perpetuate our unique artistic vision and strive toward future goals. With a tax-deductible contribution, you can provide vital assistance to our community music education programs and help keep the music playing at SMF!
Savannah, the historic riverside birthplace of Georgia, was settled in 1733 and is one of the few major cities in the South with antebellum charm and architecture remaining intact. The Historic District with its public squares provide endless amounts of strolling and exploring. Please view this directory of local businesses and community partners when making your travel plans.
Savannah Music Festival LIVE is a weekly radio show produced for the GPB Radio Network. Now offered through PRX, the show has been licensed to public radio stations in California, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Nevada, Montana, Utah, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. Listeners can tune in on Sundays at 9 pm and Mondays at 11 pm throughout Georgia (on GPB Radio), and on Thursdays at 8 pm on WUGA in Athens. Stream shows from our current season below.
As Musical America's 2012 "Musicians of the Year," cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han rank among the most respected and influential classical musicians in the world today. Their repertoire as a duo spans virtually the entire literature for cello...
As a singer whose live performances are a musical patchwork of contemporary Americana styles, Texas born Ruthie Foster is a unique artist in our time. She has created a repertoire that is seamlessly evocative of the life she lives,...
By 1801 at the age of 30, Beethoven had been experiencing ringing in his ears for three years, and was well on his way to deafness. By 1815, Beethoven's condition had become "intolerable" and with the addition of other...
The Romantic Period contains numerous chamber music masterworks by both Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Though he was born 23 years after Schumann, Brahms began to compose early in his life, and it was through the violinist Joseph Joachim...
The strongest unified movement toward Russian nationalistic expression in 19th century concert music occurred during the 1860s with the formation of a group of composers dubbed "the five" or "the mighty handful." They included Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, Cesar Cui,...
The Baroque is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance and grandeur in sculpting, painting, architecture, literature, dance and music. The Baroque style began around 1600 in Rome...
Though Russia got a late start in developing its native tradition of classical music, by the late 19th and early 20th century, the country was well into its third generation of classical composers. Two of the giants from this period...
The history of Russian music over the past 125 years has been every bit as tempestuous as its political leadership. As nationalist music began to envelope Europe toward the end of the 1800s, Russian composers were creating some of the...
When flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia brought his group for their Savannah debut in 2012, he showed why he is the most renowned flamenco guitarist playing today. With great singers, dancers and virtuoso instrumentalists, the ensemble lit up the stage...
His real name is Francisco Gustavo Sanchez Gomez and he was born in 1947 in Algeciras, a city in the province of Cadiz in Spain. He likes to eat soup and drink wine, but is also internationally renowned as a...
Using fearless musical curiosity as a guiding force for more than 35 years, Tony Trischka has become one of the world's foremost banjo players, inspiring an entire generation of bluegrass and acoustic musicians. Besides being one of the instrument's top...
While there are certain unmistakeable similarities in the musicianship of the two siblings, the younger brother of Nat King Cole long ago emerged from the awesome shadow cast by his elder brother. In truth, his phrasing is far closer...
When immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland arrived in the Appalachian region of the United States in the 18th century, they brought with them the musical traditions of their homelands. These traditions were extended, refined and combined into a...
Bruce Molsky was born in the Bronx and fell in love with old-time music as a teenager. He moved to Virginia in the '70s, learning directly from old masters like Tommy Jarrell, and seeing how music fit into people's...
The use of music in a painterly fashion by the French pioneered a direction in the creation of instrumental sound, and this attachment to visual culture has served as one of the inspirations for the unique modern tradition of...
Original air date: week of October 7, 2012 When writing music, most composers see a piano as the best means of trying out ideas as they commit them to paper. In fact, there is more extensive solo repertoire for...
Original air date: week of September 22, 2012 Even though you can't pack it in your hand luggage as you might a guitar, fiddle or flute, the piano opens up the entire world of music because it can translate...
Original air date: week of September 17, 2012 When you're raised by a mother who is an aspiring concert pianist as well as your piano teacher, and she takes you to hear performances by Nat King Cole, Erroll Garner,...
Original air date: September 9, 2012 Since 1975, the Takacs Quartet has been regarded as one of the great ensembles in chamber music, playing with a unique blend of drama, warmth and humor while bringing fresh insights to the...
Though he lacked the sheer power of many other keyboard artists in his day, Polish-born pianist Frederic Chopin more than compensated with his impeccable virtuoso technique and inspired musicianship. He incorporated the beauties of Italian opera into his piano...
Coming from a homeland with no real classical guitar tradition and a population of only 600,000, the challenges faced by Milos Karadaglic in climbing the international guitar-playing ladder were daunting. War was happening all around his homeland in Montenegro,...
In 1998, when Bela Fleck formed his renowned ensemble the Flecktones, he never dreamed the group would still be performing almost 25 years later. The original creations of these four virtuosic players, fusing a wealth of musical styles using both...
On paper, it wouldn't appear that the mixture of a traditional New Orleans jazz group and a classic bluegrass band on the same stage would make for a musical extravaganza. But when the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Del...
Original air date: week of July 29, 2012 Nearly a quarter of a century ago, banjo master Bela Fleck formed a band that drew on bluegrass, jazz, blues and rock, combining the talents of four unique musicians that play acoustic...
Original air date: week of July 8, 2012 Struggling with illness and deafness in the final years of his life, Beethoven rose above them to create some of his most profound works. The emotional weight of his A minor Quartet,...
Original air date: week of June 24, 2012 Throughout a lifetime of performing and composing, Edgar Meyer has turned the double bass into a modern virtuoso instrument that is equally at home in classical music and in the American vernacular....
Original air date: week of June 17, 2012 In this episode, we listen to Antonin Dvorak's great Piano Quintet, Op. 81, performed at the Telfair Academy of Arts & Sciences by Menahem Pressler with Daniel Hope and Benny Kim on...
Original air date: week of June 3, 2012 This edition of SMF Live features selections from an all-Dvorak program that was part of the Daniel Hope & Friends series at the 2012 Savannah Music Festival. Joining Daniel and his colleagues...
Original air date: week of May 27, 2012 Back in the 1930s, a group of related Pentecostal churches developed an African-American gospel music tradition known as sacred steel. The steel guitar was embraced in worship services in place of the...
Original air date: week of May 20, 2012 As arguably the greatest child prodigy the history of western music has ever known, Felix Mendelssohn produced works of extraordinary mastery throughout his entire life. His chamber music works, including the piano...
Original air date: week of May 13, 2012 Every now and then a musician comes along with an artistic conception that is so original, he/she is incapable of sounding like anyone else. Such is the case with all great artists,...
The only documentation from Franz Schubert's life concerning his great string string quintet - one of the masterpieces of the chamber music literature - is a letter from 1828 written by the composer just a month before his untimely death...
Philadelphia has been the birthplace of many great jazz musicians, including many masters of jazz. By the late 1920s, players such as Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti had put Phillip on the jazz map, followed later by Stan Getz and...
Musical recitals offer listeners the opportunity to hear a collection of pieces selected by the performer. Such an occasion might feature the works of either a single composer, or a group of compositions that, when combined, illuminate a central theme...
As the concept of a jazz orchestra approaches nearly 90 years of existence, the big bands still around and touring with their own style and identity are few and far between. One group that has persisted in sustaining an international...
The history of the banjo in jazz dates back to the earliest ensembles of the 20th century in New Orleans, when banjo players were occasionally the star of the band. Over the next 100 years, however, the banjo changed within...
To describe a classical pianist as thoughtful, modest and dedicated to his craft would almost make him/her seem unexciting. Yet those traits aptly describe one of the most commanding and consummate pianists of our time, Norwegian Leif Ove Ansdnes. In...
Old-time American music has always resided comfortably next to classic country, folk and bluegrass. Fans of these styles have always known they can count on a superb blend of them when listening to Tim O'Brien, who has spent the last...
Original air date: week of January 15, 2012 As the tradition of bluegrass music continues to evolve, the genre's most creative musicians wield an expansive repertoire of original compositions and arrangements built on virtuosity, showmanship and a deep understanding of...
The sound of the Hammond B-3 organ with a Leslie speaker evolved in mid-20th century America through a range of musical genres that included blues, rock, gospel, and most notably, jazz. Many of the finest players on the instrument were...
Original air date: week of November 27, 2011 Tucked between Togo to the west and Nigeria on the east, the West African nation of Benin is one of the smallest on the continent, yet it has produced one of Africa's...
Original air date: week of November 6, 2011 Though nine of Ludwig Van Beethoven's ten violin sonatas date between 1797 and 1803, the early years of his maturity, he still managed to leave the genre irrevocably changed. These enduring works...
Original air date: week of October 31, 2011 Duke Ellington is widely regarded as one of the most important composers in the history of music and his orchestra in the mid-1930s was at the beginning of his creative peak, featuring...
Brazilian music has produced many creative composers and a wealth of great guitarists, but rarely do these talents reside within the same individual. One such exception is the brilliant young musician Chico Pinheiro, who was born in Sao Paolo in...
The Hungarian-born Franz Liszt was one of the greatest and most charismatic virtuosos in music history. Liszt exerted an almost otherworldly control over his audience due to his technical and interpretive mastery, and it was not uncommon for members of...
Original air date: week of September 18, 2011 There have been many outstanding piano trios throughout the history of jazz, each with its own signature sound. There is the majestic swing of the Oscar Peterson Trio, the classy bop of...
Original air date: week of August 28, 2011 Though the repertoire of composition for violin and cello is not especially large, there are many colorful and dramatic duos that span the period from the late nineteenth through the first quarter...
Original air date: week of August 26, 2011 When people talk about jazz piano music, more often than not they are referring to a jazz piano trio, which has generally been jazz pianists' favorite format. There's good reasoning behind this...
Original air date: week of August 19, 2011 Bassist Edgar Meyer and banjoist Bela Fleck had collaborated for nearly thirty years, but in 2008 when they formed a trio with tabla master Zakir Hussain, they created a small group in...
Original air date: week of August 14, 2011 When banjoist Bela Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer and tabla player Zakir Hussain decided to form a trio, they committed to creating a group with rich and varied compositions, virtuosic playing and a...
Original air date: week of August 7, 2011 Taking vocal cues from Sam Cooke and James Brown and wrapping them in the cozy warmth of rhythm and blues, singer/guitarist James Hunter hails from England but has American soul running through...
Original air date: week of July 24, 2011 In the world of chamber music, there are many masterworks of the idiom - pieces that are continually performed year in and year out at festivals and chamber music series around the...
Original air date: week of July 17, 2011 When American engineer Laurens Hammond invented the electric Hammond organ in 1934, he knew he had created an organ that could be sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven...
Original air date: week of July 10, 2011 Players who win piano competitions don't always become great pianists, but now in his late 30s, Nikolai Lugansky has all the makings of a modern virtuoso. Born in Moscow in April of...
Original air date: week of July 3, 2011 In this episode, we listen to the complete 2011 performance by Junior Brown at the Lucas Theatre for the Arts, where he played an hour-long, non-stop set on his original instrument made...
Original air date: week of June 26, 2011 The five sonatas for cello and piano that Beethoven composed are milestones of the literature. They redefined the possibilities for these two instruments by creating music in which each part had an...
Original air date: week of June 19, 2011 During the 18th century, the cello had gradually become regarded as a solo as well as an accompanying instrument. While neither Mozart nor Haydn composed a cello sonata, Beethoven more than made...
Original air date: week of June 12, 2011 The forward movement of contemporary American stringband music has always been fueled by a tradition that existed outside the classroom setting. When a young person attempts to pursue an American style such...
Original air date: week of June 5, 2011 While Beethoven is generally acknowledged as the first great composer of cello sonatas, there have been numerous outstanding works written for the cello as a solo instrument over the last three centuries....
Original air date: week of May 29, 2011 The string quartets written in the late 19th and early 20th century by Debussy and Ravel both dazzled and disturbed people in their first performances. Debussy's fantastic, spiraling variations were shocking, but...
Original air date: week beginning May 23, 2011 The tradition of stringband playing in the United States dates back at least 200 years. In the early 19th century, the fiddle-banjo duo that was essential to the dance music of the...
Original air date: week of May 15, 2011 When people hear the term "chamber music", more often than not they think of a form of Classical music from the European tradition written for a small number of instruments. In the...
Original air date: week of May 8, 2011 At an audition to become the principal player on your instrument in a symphony orchestra, technical proficiency is only part of the test. Members of the orchestra weigh whether a candidate plays...
Original air date: week of May 1, 2011 The art of playing jazz piano is something that Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes pursued for more than 20 years before they met one another. After these two premiere pianists fell in...
Week beginning April 24, 2011 In the decade between 1781 and 1791 in Vienna, the preeminent keyboard virtuoso of the day was a young man named Mozart. During the final ten years of his life, Mozart was undeniably the absolute...
Original air date: week of February 20, 2011 When the family band Cherryholmes burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere during the first few years of the new millennium, they quickly developed a loyal audience, followed by a wealth...
Original air date: week of February 13, 2011 Growing up in the South Carolina low country, Shannon Whitworth was always surrounded by water, before she decided to make her home in the North Carolina mountains. It's the reason that the...
Original air date: week of February 6, 2011 When you think of American roots music, one of the most distinct styles is bluegrass. Bill Monroe once characterized the genre of music he helped create as: "Scottish bagpipes and old-time fiddlin'....
Original air date: week of January 30, 2011 The most common piano trio format in jazz has usually included a pianist, a bassist and a drummer. Communication between these three players is built around the talents they have amassed through...
Original air date: week of January 23, 2011 The musical heritage of French West Africa includes a wealth of traditional and popular music styles from a variety of countries including Senegal, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin and Mali. The arid, landlocked...
Original air date: week of January 16, 2011 Each Spring, twelve of the top high school jazz bands from across the nation travel to Savannah to spend three days studying with a handpicked set of instructors who, individually, are some...
Original air date: week of January 2, 2011 When double bass player and composer Renaud Garcia-Fons arrived backstage in the van with his custom five-stringed bass, we expected to see yet another huge bass case. Instead, he unloaded a much...
Original air date: week of December 26, 2010 At the quarter century mark in age, jazz pianist Gerald Clayton has staked a claim in the music by sticking to his mantra that tradition and innovation can peacefully coexist. But with...
Original air date: week of December 19, 2010 The development of jazz music during the first half of the twentieth century occurred at an astonishingly rapid pace. The wide array of styles that emerged included the polyphonic improvisation of New...
Original air date: week of December 12, 2010 The term "piano trio" usually refers to to a group comprising a pianist, a double bass player and a drummer. The pianist is generally the leader of these trios, which are usually...
Original air date: week of December 5, 2010 In this episode we listen to a 2010 performance by an American guitarist who has been closely identified to jazz, although he has always taken elements of folk, blues, rock and other...
Original air date: week of November 21, 2010 The lineage of great jazz musicians in Georgia goes back to the early 20th century when such renowned musicians as Fletcher Henderson came out of Atlanta University, moved to New York city...
For chamber music lovers, springtime in Savannah is a veritable feast of music for 17 days. Some of the world's finest classical musicians gather to rehearse and perform masterworks of the idiom in historic and intimate spaces. Tune in to...
Original air date: November 7, 2010 This episode is a sneak preview for GPB listeners of artists returning to Savannah in 2011. Stay tuned for our complete season announcement on November 10th!...
Original air date: week of October 31, 2010 Whether one is a young student just beginning to write music, or a master at the height of their powers, the art and craft of composing chamber music is always a challenge....
Original air date: week of October 24, 2010 Of all the major composers of the late Romantic era, Brahms was the one most attached to the classical ideal as manifested in the music of Haydn, Mozart, and especially Beethoven. As...
Original air date: week of October 19, 2010 The year 1827 was the last full year of life for Franz Schubert. He had just turned 30 and was terribly ill, yet it was arguably his most prolific year, in which...
Original air date: week of October 12, 2010 If the musical world of the 19th century can be said to end with Beethoven, it is the opinion of some that it should end with Wagner. Such a description expresses neatly...
Original air date: week of October 3, 2010 Pianist Garrick Ohlsson is an interpreter of great originality, whose playing combines supreme elegance with extraordinary tonal projection. These qualities have placed him among the ranks of the world's foremost pianists. On...
Original air date: week of September 26, 2010 As one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century, Dmitri Shostakovich was a child prodigy as both a pianist and composer. Born in 1906 in St. Petersburg, Russia, he first...
Original air date: week of September 19, 2010 If you were born in the 1960s, you could grow up just about anywhere in America and be exposed to gospel, jazz, blues, soul, folk and rock music on the radio and...
Original air date: week of September 12, 2010 When new styles of American music began to emerge at the end of the 19th century, the primary instrument at the center of these creations was the piano. Virtuosos such as ragtime...
Original air date: week of September 5, 2010 The term "20th Century Classical Music" often conjures up the notion of sounds that are not very appealing to classical music purists. However, many 20th century composers never strayed from writing beautiful...
Original air date: week of August 29, 2010 Violinist Mark O'Connor spent ten days at the 2010 Savannah Music Festival playing in a variety of projects. His Hot Swing! Trio at SMF featured guitarist Julian Lage and bassist Gary Mazzaroppi....
Original air date: week of August 22, 2010 In the late 18th century, Vienna was the major musical center in Europe and a city where the great triumvirate of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven made their homes. Beethoven's first appearance in...
Original air date: week of August 15, 2010 A sonata in music literally means a piece that is played, as opposed to a cantata, which is a piece that is sung. The sonata has naturally evolved through the history of...
Original air date: week of August 8, 2010 Born in New York City in 1904, Fats Waller played the organ and sang in the choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where his father was the minister. By the...
Original air date: week of August 2, 2010 While it's hard to give a satisfactory definition of "genius," it nearly always happens that artistic genius expresses itself in youth. With the greatest of geniuses there follows an extended period of...
Original air date: week beginning July 25, 2010 In 2010, Mark O'Connor came to the Savannah Music Festival and spent ten days pursuing his American music journey. He taught master classes, played solos and duos, and performed with the Jazz...
Original air date: week of July 18, 2010 Few musical communities have proven more nurturing of emerging talent than bluegrass and its acoustic tributaries. In part this is because precocious youth has proved a wise investment, as evidenced by former...
Original air date: week of July 12, 2010 Each year during March and April, violinist Daniel Hope invites some of his favorite colleagues to spend 17 days performing chamber music with him at the Savannah Music Festival, where he serves...
Original air date: week of July 4, 2010 When pianist Bill Charlap arrived in Savannah with his trio to play three sets of music over the course of one evening, he made it emphatically clear that he had no intention...
Original air date: week of June 28, 2010 Though her childhood was steeped in the culture of mining and Appalachia, Kathy Mattea wasn't really exposed to much traditional mountain music. But after the 2006 Sago mining disaster in her home...
Original air date: week of June 21, 2010 Pianist Henry Butler was born in New Orleans and has developed a sound that Dr. John refers to as the "pride of the Crescent City." As an extension of the great piano...
Original air date: week of June 14, 2010 During his career, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak wrote 14 string quartets, all between 1862 and 1895. His final two quartets, with their mastery of form, color and expression, are a fitting summation...
Original air date: week of June 7, 2010 The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception. Due to its combined melodic, harmonic and rhythmic possibilities, it has been the one instrument that allowed the...
Original air date: week of May 31, 2010 In December of 1891, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak accepted the offer of Jeanette Thurber to become the director of the National Academy of Music in New York City. Mrs. Thurber hoped that...
Original air date: week of May 22, 2010 As one of the most revered pianists in our time, Yefim Bronfman bucks the stereotype of the Russian soloist as merely a technical wizard of large sound and emphatic personality. Though he...
Original air date: week of May 17, 2010 Ever since their childhood concerts in Brazil and their New York appearances as teenagers in 1969, Sergio and Odair Assad have been touring the world and recording as The Assad Brothers. They...
Original air date: Week of May 10, 2010 At the turn of the 20th century when the mandolin became popular in America, a man named Orville Gibson changed its shape and marketability. What had primarily been a fad instrument would...
Original Air Date: Week Beginning May 3, 2010 When mandolins began evolving from the lute family in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, they were designed with a round back or bowl back in what was known as the...
Original Air Date: Week of April 26, 2010Hungarian fiddle playing is known the world over for its passion, romance and virtuosity. To most non-Hungarians, the music is synonymous with the campfire, the open road and the Gypsies. But is Hungarian...
As the Industrial Revolution progressed in the 19th Century, an educated middle class arose with the means and cultural aspirations to invest in a new form of domestic art: the family piano. Since there were no means to reproduce music...
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Savannah Music Festival is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.




