43rd Annual Seacoast Jazz Festival
in partnership with seacoast jazz society
Want to pre-order a delicious bite from one of our restaurant partners? Click the ‘Make a Reservation’ button below:
* Reservations open to Season Passholders for Early Access on Thursday, 6/18, and to the General Public on Tuesday, 6/23.
General Admission Donations do not include reserved seating. This is a way to make your gate donation in advance. Thank you!
Thank you to our long-time concert series sponsor
In partnership with
Questions About Visiting?
Visit our FAQ pageThe 43rd Annual Seacoast Jazz Festival, in partnership with Seacoast Jazz Society, is back on the Wilcox Main Stage.
Prescott Park Arts Festival, in partnership with Seacoast Jazz Society, is delighted to present the 43rd Annual Seacoast Jazz Festival featuring a host of local, regional, and international talent, amplifying the different styles of jazz. The festival has a tremendous history on the seacoast. The first festival was held in 1983 under the name, Portsmouth Jazz Festival. For over 25 years, it was known as the Tommy Gallant Jazz Festival, to honor legendary local jazz pianist and composer, Tommy Gallant. In recent years it has become the Seacoast Jazz Festival in the hopes to expand the jazz festival’s reach in the future as a destination event featuring acclaimed jazz artists from around the globe. The Seacoast Jazz Society was formed in 1990 and its mission is to promote jazz through community outreach and education, to support local musicians, and to provide scholarships for young artists. For more information about the Seacoast Jazz Society, or to donate, please visit www.seacoastjazz.org.
43rd Annual Seacoast Jazz Festival
Line-up: 12pm – 6pm
12:00-12:50 Yoko Miwa Trio.
1:15-2:05 Soggy Po’ Boys.
2:30 – 3:20 Nick Grondin Group.
3:20-3:50 Salsa Secrets
3:50-4:40 Kristalis y Las Nenas del Swing
5:00-6:00 Seacoast Big Band
* Rain Date: Sunday, August 23
Please note: the line-up is subject to change in the event of a move to the Rain Date
12:00-12:50 Yoko Miwa Trio
“Yoko Miwa has been gifted with both extraordinary musical skills and has the pure spirit that is necessary for great art. We love her musical gifts and her beautiful spirit as well.” – Ahmad Jamal
“Miwa is a virtuoso pianist with dazzling technique always in the service of interaction and exchange of ideas.” – Donald Elfman, NYC Jazz Record
“Pianist Yoko Miwa displays unpretentious melodies, elegant phrasing, and the lyrical sensibility of a jazz poet.” – Jazziz Magazine
“She has the enviable ability to play in any context with authenticity, clarity, and spontaneity…” – Wilbert Sostre, JazzTimes
“I greatly appreciate and respect the clarity and strength in Yoko’s playing, it is very apparent – the honesty, care and depth of foundation she touches the piano with.” – Benny Green
Internationally acclaimed pianist/composer Yoko Miwa is one of the most powerful and compelling performers on the scene today. Her trio, with its remarkable telepathy and infectious energy, has brought audiences to their feet worldwide. Yoko was named a Rising Star Pianist in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 DownBeat Critics Poll. The Yoko Miwa Trio’s 2021 release Songs of Joy received wide acclaim and reached #1 on national jazz radio charts and was voted a best jazz album of 2021 in the DownBeat 86th Annual Readers Poll. Jazziz called it “a radiant new collection.” CD Hotlist said “…yet another triumph from one of America’s finest jazz pianists, composers, and bandleaders.” Their 2019 CD, Keep Talkin’, showcases Miwa’s fine playing and artful compositions and the trio’s uncanny musical camaraderie. DownBeat gave the recording four stars, calling it “a beautifully constructed album” and noting “the drive and lyricism of a pianist and composer at home in bebop, gospel, pop, and classical.” JazzTimes also reviewed the album favorably, praising Miwa’s “jaw-dropping degree of technique.” The album enjoyed seven weeks in the top 10 on Jazz Week’s charts, much like its predecessor, Miwa’s 2017 release Pathways, which also made Jazz Week’s top 10 for several weeks. In a 2017 feature article on Miwa, DownBeat noted her “impressive technique and a tuneful lyricism that combines an Oscar Peterson-ish hard swing with Bill Evans-like introspection.”
For more than a decade Miwa’s trio has played regularly at major jazz clubs in their home city of Boston, as well as venues around the world. A favorite of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Miwa was chosen to play on “Marian McPartland & Friends,” part of the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival. She was also chosen to perform at Lincoln Center’s annual Jazz and Leadership Workshop for The National Urban League’s Youth Summit. Miwa also appears regularly at New York’s famed Blue Note Jazz Club as well as Birdland and has performed and/or recorded with a wide range of jazz greats including Sheila Jordan, Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, George Garzone, Jazzmeia Horn, Jon Faddis, Jerry Bergonzi, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Washington, Kevin Mahogany, John Lockwood, Dominique Eade, Calvin Keys, and Johnathan Blake among others. In 2018 she performed on the main stage at the Atlanta Jazz Festival and the Litchfield Jazz Festival, where her trio drew the largest audience of any act. She is a Yamaha Pianos Artist, JVC Victor Entertainment and Ubuntu Music recording artist, 10X nominated and 2019 Winner in the Boston Music Awards as Jazz Artist of the Year, and Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll winner.
Miwa’s story of becoming a jazz musician is full of serendipity and happy twists of fate. In the late 1990s the classically-trained artist auditioned for Berklee College of Music on a lark and ended up winning a full scholarship. She arrived at the school from her homeland of Japan in 1997, intending to stay for a year. In 2022, she’s still in Boston, enriching the city’s musical life and serving as one of the most popular professors in the Berklee piano department.
Act Naturally, the Yoko Miwa Trio’s major label debut in Japan, came out in 2012 on the JVC Victor Entertainment label and the band toured Japan that same year. “She is one of the best jazz pianists in Japan,” said Yozo Iwanami, Jazz Hihyo Magazine.
A native of Kobe, Japan, Miwa didn’t pursue an interest in jazz until she met and studied with Minoru Ozone, a popular television organist and nightclub owner who is the father of pianist Makoto Ozone. Miwa worked at Ozone’s club and as an accompanist and piano instructor at his music school until the great Kobe earthquake of 1995 destroyed both facilities. Then, while continuing to take private lessons from Minoru Ozone, she also pursued musical studies at the Koyo Conservatory in Kobe. From there she won first prize in a scholarship competition to attend Berklee. Miwa quickly began playing with a host of talented students and teachers, and she formed a strong bond with vocal great Kevin Mahogany, who chose the pianist to serve as accompanist in his classes and on his gigs.
Miwa has released nine highly acclaimed CDs: In the Mist of Time (Tokuma, 2000); Fadeless Flower (Polystar, 2002); Canopy of Stars (Polystar, 2004); The Day We Said Goodbye, recorded live at the studios of WGBH-FM (Sunshine Digital, 2006); Live at Scullers (Jazz Cat Amnesty, 2011); Act Naturally (JVC Victor Entertainment, 2012), Pathways (2017), Keep Talkin’ (2019), and Songs of Joy (Ubuntu Music, 2021).
1:15-2:05 Soggy Po’ Boys
“Although New Hampshire isn’t the most obvious home for a group so devoted to the culture of The Big Easy, the Soggy Po’ Boys seem genuine in their ambition to spread the word about jazz New Orleans style, and they’re creating an accessible and fun way into this world.”
-London Jazz News
The Soggy Po Boys, native to New England, have quickly become an institution. They are spreading the good news of New Orleans music across the northeast and beyond, playing at concert halls and street corners; music festivals and burlesque festivals; bars and libraries; wherever the party requires. Part of the beauty of New Orleans music is that it’s celebrated and appreciated wherever it goes, from the street to the theater.
The Po Boys formed in 2012 to shake the walls of a local club on a Fat Tuesday but have honed their sound and become more than a Mardi Gras centerpiece. Exploring the vast musical traditions of New Orleans and expanding their repertoire to look beyond NOLA jazz, the band includes traditional Caribbean tunes (it’s been said that New Orleans is the northernmost city in the Caribbean), as well as Meters funk, soul, and brass band / street beat music.
There are a myriad of traditions that flow into New Orleans culture just as there are tributaries that feed the Mississippi, and the Po Boys are eager to explore what makes the music of New Orleans so damn special. You’ll hear the heavy influence of the New Orleans sound across the band and in the stories told by their original tunes. In line with the scope of its sound, the outfit is eight people and thrives on the interplay and group dynamics that bring this music to life.
The Soggy Po Boys are:
Shaina Schwartz : Vocals
Jim Dozet : Vocals + Guitar
Eric Klaxton : Clarinet + Saxophones
Nick Mainella : Tenor Saxophone
Josh Gagnon : Trombone
Mike Effenberger : Piano
Scott Kiefner : Bass
Brian Waterhouse : Drums
2:30 – 3:20 Nick Grondin Group
Gregory Groover – Saxophones
Jason Palmer – Trumpet
Taylor O’ Donnell – Voice
Mark Shilansky – Keyboards
Fernando Huergo – Bass
An experienced performer and award-winning composer, guitarist Nick Grondin has presented his music to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, including France, Italy, Germany, and at the Panama Jazz Festival. The Nick Grondin Group which presents his original music as modern musical storytelling—inspired by rock, folk and contemporary jazz styles. Their latest album, A View of Earth, features producer/pianist Jon Cowherd as well as Grammy-winning vocalist Aubrey Johnson, and can be heard on streaming platforms. Grondin is an active educator, Resident Artist in Jazz Guitar at the University of New Hampshire and an Associate Professor of Ear Training at Berklee College of Music in Boston. His teaching methods focus on building musicianship and applying it to real-world applications such as improvisation, songwriting and internalizing repertoire, and developing creativity through shared musical experiences. Influenced by jazz guitarists such as Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, Pat Metheny, Emily Remler, John Scofield and Bill Frisell—with his guitar, Grondin illuminates classic jazz standards and jazz-takes on popular and rock songs as well. Grondin completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston (NEC), where he also received his Master of Music in Jazz Composition.
Gregory Groover – saxophones
New York-born and Boston-bred, emerging saxophonist, composer, and educator Gregory Groover Jr has already left an indelible mark in the jazz world, in a short period. Saxophonist Walter Smith III describes him as “a thematic musician, whose playing very much relates to the song. He plays with a lot of energy, and he leads with that. The heart is the most important thing – the direction and motion of what he plays is where he really feels.” Raised with a devotion to music, Groover’s artistry seamlessly marries genres as he continues to push the boundaries of jazz while honoring its deep legacy. Groover’s dedication to his craft and unwavering commitment to excellence have solidified his position as a prominent figure in the contemporary jazz scene. As a bandleader, Groover has released two albums (Negro Spiritual Songbook, Vol 1 & 2) and made his Criss Cross Records debut in April 2024 with his record, Lovabye. In addition to being a bandleader, Groover is a highly sought-after collaborator, having performed at music festivals in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. As an educator, Gregory has served as the co-chair of music at his alma mater, the Boston Arts Academy, where he provided instruction in Jazz studies to the next generation of artists and scholars. Gregory currently serves as the Assistant Chair of Ensemble at the world-renowned Berklee College of Music. His dedication to uplifting the next generation of artists underscores his belief in the transformative power of music.
Jason Palmer – trumpet
Trumpeter, Composer,| Educator Jason Palmer has performed with Roy Haynes, Wynton
Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Ballard,
Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Common, Roy Hargrove, and Lewis Nash. In addition to performing on over forty albums as a sideman, Jason has recorded 17 albums under his own name on labels Ayva, Steeplechase, Newvelle, and most recently with Giant Step Arts. Four of his recordings were reviewed by Downbeat Magazine, all receiving 4 stars or better. Jason has toured in over 40 countries with saxophonists Mark Turner, Greg Osby, Grace Kelly, Allison Miller, and Matana Roberts, and has been a featured guest artist on multiple projects in Portugal, Mexico, Canada, and Russia. In addition to a heavy performing schedule, Jason Palmer offers his passion for improvisedmusic as Assistant Professor of Ensembles and Brass at Berklee College of Music, Jazz Trumpet Professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Ravenscroft visting Jazz Artist at Arizona State University.
Taylor O’ Donnell – vocals
Known for her exploratory use of vocal timbre and texture in her musical stylings, Taylor O’Donnell uses her roots in R&B, folk, jazz, rock, and classical music training to communicate her musical dialogue. Growing up in Colorado and living all over, from Florida to Maine, her performing experience has taken her from playing with her jazz trio on cruise ships and throughout New England to performing with symphony orchestras. Currently, Taylor serves as the Director of Music for the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Exeter (FUUSE). As an educator and conductor, she holds the positions of Associate Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Musicvand teaches voice in her private studio and online. Her expertise involves helping others deepen their capacity to listen, guiding the exploration of one’s voice through somatic awareness, and inspiring her students and choirs to sing with passion and prowess. Highlights of Taylor’s career have been an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show working with producer David Foster, performing at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in NYC, working with Grammy award winning producer Rudy Perez, singing background vocals for singer-songwriter Ben Folds, and was the 2020 New Year’s Eve Guest Artist with the Portsmouth Symphony. Currently, Taylor can be seen performing with Vintage Vocal Quartet, and in duo settings with pianists Jed Wilson and Mike Effenberger.
Mark Shilansky – keyboards
“Inventive, modern mainstream jazz pianist” (Jon Garelick, Boston Globe) Mark Shilansky (Piano) provides melodic improvisation and infectious compositions on his own and to a host of jazz luminaries, as well as to the classroom, as a professor at Berklee College of Music and the University of New Hampshire. Shilansky’s six recordings as a leader include 2007’s “Join the Club,” a mostly Latin Jazz affair featuring David Bowie saxist Donny McCaslin, and 2013’s “Fugue Mill,” the eponymous debut of his Jazz/Bluegrass/Celtic project featuring violin phenom Sara Caswell, and he is featured on over 60 recordings as a keyboardist, vocalist, composer/arranger, or producer, and in performance as band member for such artists as the New York Voices, Luciana Souza, and David Thorne Scott. As an artist he embraces the history of the styles in which he works, while seeking connections between them as a way of expressing a personal musical vision, characterized by lush harmonies, the exploration of the line between composition and improvisation, and an ever-present sense of humor. His works have been recorded by Robin McKelle, Kim Nazarian, and by Jazz All-State and College ensembles around the world.
Fernando Huergo – bass
Fernando Huergo is a bassist, composer, and educator from Cordoba, Argentina, now based in Boston. He has recorded over 140 albums, including 11 as a leader. Fernando has toured and given clinics in North, Central and South America, Europe and Asia. An active performer on the jazz scene, he currently plays with Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos, MOZIK, Mehmet Sanlikol, Daniel Ian Smith, Pablo Ablanedo, and El Eco, to name a few. Fernando Huergo has performed with his quintet at the Buenos Aires Jazz Festival, and Cordoba International Jazz Festival in Argentina, as well as at Alexanderplatz Jazz Club in Rome, Italy, and Sunside Jazz in Paris, France, The Regattabar in Cambridge, MA and Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC, among others.
Lee Fish – drums
Acclaimed Boston-born drummer and composer Lee Fish has been part of the thriving Brooklyn music scene since 2018. A fixture at Wally’s Cafe during his student tenure at Berklee — playing with such distinctive leaders as Jason Palmer, Esperanza Spalding, Nadia Washington, and Evgeny Lebedev — Lee became a highly sought collaborator in Boston, who’s now flexing his breadth as a leader in New York City. Having earned his master’s degree on full scholarship at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, Lee received his earliest musical education on the road. Long before he studied under Danilo Pérez, Terri Lyne Carrington and Joe Lovano, at age 3, he would perform with his parents’ band Amante at venues across North America, from Florida to Quebec. Since then, he’s performed all over the world on nearly every continent, appearing on more than 50 recordings, including Mike Tucker’s 2014 release Live! Featuring Warren Wolf, and Jason Palmer’s critically acclaimed 2019 release Sweet Love that received four stars from DownBeat Magazine. “Lee Fish is one of my favorites — inventive, tasteful, and exciting — a creative force to watch for on the instrument”— Terri Lyne Carrington
Kristalis y Las Nenas del Swing is a vibrant Latin music ensemble known for bringing energy, rhythm, and passion to every performance. Blending Cuban music with Puerto Rican salsa, the group celebrates the rich traditions of Caribbean music through dynamic live shows filled with dance, culture, and soul. Inspired by legendary artists such as Celia Cruz, La India, and many more. The band delivers powerful vocals, infectious rhythms, and timeless melodies that connect with audiences of all backgrounds. Led by Kristalis, the group is recognized for its charismatic stage presence and joyful celebration of Latin music and heritage.
5:00-6:00 Seacoast Big Band
The Seacoast Big Band has entertained audiences in New England for more than 40 years. Based in Durham, NH, the band features outstanding performers and educators from up and down the I-95 corridor and regularly performs with internationally recognized guest artists, including at previous Seacoast Jazz Festivals with artists such as Ed Shaughnessy, Clark Terry, Carmen Bradford, Sharon Jones, and Alexa Tarantio. Dr. Nathan Jorgensen is the musical director of the longstanding organization and was preceeded in that role by Dave Seiler.
Reservations
Table and blanket reservations are non-refundable, but can be transferred to another available date in the 2026 season.
Please Note: General Admission Donations do not include reserved seating. This is a way to make your gate donation in advance.
Table reservations seat four.
Blanket reservations are placed in the blankets-only area of lawn and do not allow for chair placement. Blankets are roughly 5′ x 5′, comfortably fitting 2 adults and 1 child.
See you in the park!