SMF Live

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1503 – Vijay Iyer Trio / Cedric Burnside In this episode, we’ll get a window into the worlds of two very different artists: jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and Mississippi hill country bluesman Cedric Burnside. Iyer brought his trio featuring bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Jeremy Dutton to…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1502 – Schumann & Beethoven In this episode, we listen to Robert Schumann’s great Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Opus 44, performed during the Philip Dukes & Friends chamber music series. It will be followed by the lesser known sonatinas for mandolin, composed by Beethoven and performed here by…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1501 – Béla Fleck My Bluegrass Heart / Lúnasa This and future episodes of Savannah Music Festival LIVE will attempt to recreate the festival experience through its multi-hued lens, with the idea that we each have something to discover through every new interaction with music. This episode begins with…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1448 – Escher String Quartet 2021 In October of 2021, the Escher String Quartet appeared in four concerts over three nights in Savannah, performing Mozart viola quintets with Savannah Music Festival Associate Artistic Director Philip Dukes, and on a program featuring musicians from the Savannah Philharmonic under maestro Keitaro…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1419 – Dr. Lonnie Smith 2018 September 28, 2021 saw the passing of 79-year old jazz organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, NEA Jazz Master and one of the most revered and soulful musicians to ever sit behind a Hammond B3. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE, we’ll listen to highlights…

savannahmusicfestival · SMFLive1416_HopeandDukes2014 From 2004-2019, violinist Daniel Hope assembled a group of American and European musicians and programmed our annual chamber music series. Now that Associate Artistic Director chair is held by British violist Philip Dukes, a longtime series participant, and friend and collaborator of Hope’s. Philip Dukes is recognized as one of the world’s…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1404 – Joey DeFrancesco & the People The use of the organ in jazz was shuffled to the side of the stage beginning in the late 1960s when lightweight electric keyboards and synthesizers became standard operating equipment. Joey DeFrancesco saw this development as an unfair disengagement. By advocating for a reevaluation…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1402 – Crawford, Doyle, Vallely, Wickel In early April of 2014, an assembly of some of the finest traditional musicians in Scottish and Irish music took up residence at the Charles H Morris Center during the Savannah Music Festival. The Irish side of that equation was made up of Kevin Crawford,…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1351 – Steep Canyon Rangers 2019 The North Carolina-based sextet Steep Canyon Rangers has spent two decades bending the bluegrass aesthetic and combining it to elements of pop, country and folk rock. The Grammy Award-winning band, which toured and collaborated extensively with comedian and banjo player Steve Martin, is made up…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1349 – Jon Cleary A world-renowned keyboardist and vocalist, Jon Cleary draws upon 35 years of immersion in the New Orleans music scene to produce an eclectic style steeped in ‘70s soul, gospel, funk and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. In this Savannah Music Festival debut, Jon Cleary and his trio played…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1347 – Kat Edmonson Critically acclaimed vocalist and songwriter, actor and dancer, Kat Edmonson has played major stages across the United States, Europe and Japan. This episode features highlights from her Savannah Music Festival debut in 2019 at the Charles H. Morris Center in Trustees’ Garden, when she was…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1321 – Fatoumata Diawara 2019 Widely praised as one of the most vital artists in modern African music, singer, songwriter, guitarist and celebrated actor Fatoumata Diawara returned to Savannah in 2019 following a 2014 festival debut on a co-bill with Bombino. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE, we’ll listen…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1312 – John Doyle Born into an extended family of musicians in Dublin, John Doyle honed his signature left-hand finger-picking style on the guitar at a young age. His powerful playing later provided the signature rhythmic backbone for Irish-American supergroup Solas, which he co-founded with Seamus Egan, John Williams, Karan Casey…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1310 – Goodbye Girls The Goodbye Girls are an acoustic quartet founded in Boston with musicians from the US, Canada and Sweden. Formed out of a common love for old-time, bluegrass and Swedish traditional music, the Goodbye Girls are Lena Jonsson on fiddle, Allison de Groot on clawhammer banjo, Brittany Karlson…

savannahmusicfestival · SMF Live 1308 – Dayme Arocena Cuban singer Daymé Arocena grew up in a two-bed house with 21 other people where every available surface was scuffed from the rumba rhythms played out on them. Her music is infused with an eclectic mix of Cuban styles from the fast-paced changüí of Guantanamo to guaguancó…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE – Charlie Hunter Trio feat. Lucy Woodward With a career spanning 25 years, Charlie Hunter consistently ups his game as an innovative composer, imaginative bandleader and all-around great guitarist. He has worked with Norah Jones, Mos Def, John Mayer, D’Angelo and numerous other artists, and is widely considered the…

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE – Roby Lakatos 2019 Hungarian violinist Roby Lakatos is not only a scorching virtuoso, but a musician of extraordinary stylistic versatility who defies definition. Described as everything from gypsy violinist or “devil’s fiddler” to classical virtuoso to jazz improviser to arranger, he is the kind of universal musician so…

The acoustic quartet Hawktail features Brittany Haas on fiddle, Dominick Leslie on mandolin, Jordan Tice on guitar, and Paul Kowert on bass. On this episode, we listen to an April 4, 2018 performance given by Hawktail at the Charles H. Morris Center in Trustees’ Garden.

Acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Darrell Scott first performed at the Savannah Music Festival in 2014 in collaboration with Tim O’Brien. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE, we’ll listen to highlights from Darrell Scott’s 2019 solo performance at the Charles H. Morris Center in Trustees’ Garden.

savannahmusicfestival · Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1247 – Dafnis Prieto Big Band Cuban-born drummer, composer, bandleader and 2011 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Dafnis Prieto honors his musical heroes and mentors with his 17-piece orchestra. On this episode, we listen to the 2019 Savannah debut of the Dafnis Prieto Big Band, performing repertoire from the Grammy-winning album…

A decade after their Savannah Music Festival debut, the acclaimed acoustic quintet Punch Brothers returned to our festival to play for a packed house at the Trustees Theater. On this episode we’ll listen to highlights from that concert, given on Saturday, March 30, 2019.

Born in 1957 into a musical family in New Orleans, Herlin Riley began playing drums at age 3. He studied trumpet through high school and two years of college before focusing his attention fully on the drums. He spent 17 years with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and four years with Ahmad…

Entering his sixth decade of performing and recording, soul singer Lee Fields is one of the hardest-working and most prolific artists in the genre. He performs with every ounce of energy and passion that he can tap, fronting the acclaimed Truth & Soul Records house band. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE we…

Delano Floyd McCoury is a living link to the days when bluegrass was made only in honky-tonks, schoolhouse shows and on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE, we listen to the a 2019 performance given by the Del McCoury Band, on a co-bill with the Steep…

Born in 1993 in San Francisco’s Bay Area, Molly Tuttle was 8 years old when she began playing guitar. By age 11 she was performing on stage with The Tuttles, the family band led by her father, Jack, a well-respected bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and instructor. She picked up the banjo and mandolin, but mainly concentrated on…

On a Monday night in April of 2019, we presented a one-time double bill at the Savannah Music Festival: Mike Marshall & Darol Anger alongside guitarists Bryan Sutton and David Grier. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE, we listen to highlights of the Mike Marshall & Darol Anger set, which includes a handful…

Whether sonically reinventing chamber music or applying electric improvisation to traditional songs, early rock or jazz, guitar pioneer Bill Frisell maintains incredible musical versatility while also having a singular playing style. On this episode of Savannah Music Festival LIVE, we listen to highlights from Bill Frisell’s second festival appearance: a 2018 performance with his trio…

Anda Union’s captivating combination of Mongolian musical styles is a reflection of their roots. Hailing from different ethnic nomadic cultures, the nine-member band unites tribal music traditions from all over Inner Mongolia, a semi-autonomous region of China. On this episode, we listen to the 2019 Savannah Music Festival debut of Anda Union.

The Jerusalem Quartet formed in the early 1990s while its members were students at the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Dance. In its debut year, the quartet was awarded first prize in the chamber music category by the Jerusalem Academy followed by two prizes at the Graz International Competition the following year. On this episode…

Guitarists Bryan Sutton and David Grier are both central to the evolution of flatpicking. With 13 guitarist of the year awards from the IBMA between them, both men started playing at a young age, influenced greatly by the playing and repertoire of Doc Watson, Tony Rice and Clarence White, among others. On this episode, we’ll…

As a performer, jazz pianist Marcus Roberts has played in settings ranging from solo, trio, and jazz orchestra to symphony orchestra, always bringing a remarkably fresh approach to each moment. As a composer, he has been commissioned for new work by Chamber Music America, Jazz at Lincoln Center, that Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Ozawa Music…

At 33-years of age, pianist Aaron Diehl is not only remarkable for his own generation of musicians, but he has already left an indelible mark on the jazz world through his meticulously conceived and refreshing performances, collaborations, compositions and interpretations. On this episode, we listen to a performance given by the Aaron Diehl Trio on…

The prominence of the squareneck dobro in American acoustic music has grown exponentially in the past three decades, in large part due to innovations created by Jerry Douglas. On the same day Douglas’s bluegrass band, The Earls of Leicester, played to a packed house in the 2019 Savannah Music Festival, we were lucky to have…

In their early days, Mike Merenda and Ruth Ungar, a Hudson valley husband and wife duo, fronted The Mammals, along with Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, and were a part of the old-time and stringband music wave that ran over the American folk music world at the beginning of the new millennium. The duo met in the dive…

Pianist Aaron Diehl is a rare talent, having already made an indelible mark on the jazz world at just 32 years of age. In this recording we hear highlights from his solo performance in our 2019 festival. The program was built upon what Jelly Roll Morton famously referred to as the two basic elements of…