Savannah Music Festival

About the Event

Experience a World of Music in One City

Georgia's largest musical arts event and one of the most distinctive cross-genre music festivals in the world.

Schedule of Events:

12:30 pm – 1:45 pm: Noon30: Emmet Cohen, piano

Pianist and composer Emmet Cohen has emerged as one of his generation’s leading figures in jazz. DownBeat observed that his “nimble touch, measured stride and warm harmonic vocabulary indicate he’s above any convoluted technical showmanship.” Possessing a fluid technique, an innovative tonal palette, and an extensive repertoire, Cohen plays with the command of a seasoned veteran and the passion of an artist fully devoted to his medium.

Location: Metal Building at Trustees’ Garden

Ticket: $39.00

Click here to buy tickets.

5:00 pm – 6:15 pm & 7:30 pm – 8:45 pm: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino

Formed by writer Rina Durante in 1975, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino (CGS) is regarded as Italy’s leading and longest-standing traditional music ensemble, hailing from Salento in Puglia. Italy’s fascinating dichotomy of tradition and modernity comes together in the music of CGS. The seven-piece band and dancer are the leading exponents in a new wave of young performers reinventing Southern Italy’s pizzica music and dance traditions for today’s global audience. The tens of thousands who often congregate for this Lecce-based band’s concerts in Italy know that bandleader, fiddler and drummer Mauro Durante and company can make an audience shimmy with the energy of the ancient ritual of pizzica tarantata, said to cure the tarantula spider’s bite with its frenzied trance-like dances. CGS shows are full of energy, passion, rhythm and mystery, bringing the audience from the past into modernity, and back. This is their first time at Savannah Music Festival.

Location: Metal Building at Trustees’ Garden

Ticket: $45.00

Click here to buy tickets for 5pm show.

Click here to buy tickets for 7:30pm show

5:30 pm – 6:45 pm & 8:00 pm – 9:15 pm: Cajun Dance Party: BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet

For 50 years, two-time Grammy winner BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet has been hailed as one of the best Cajun bands in the world. Doucet and the band can be credited with helping take Cajun music from its regional roots in Louisiana to popularity worldwide. Making their Savannah Music Festival debut with these performances, BeauSoleil’s distinctive sound derives from New Orleans jazz, blues rock, folk, swamp pop, zydeco, country and bluegrass. Driven by bandleader Michael Doucet’s spellbinding fiddle and soulful vocals, BeauSoleil always gets audiences dancing!

Location: Ships of the Sea

Ticket: $45.00

Click here to buy tickets for 5:30pm show
Click here to buy tickets for 8pm show

6:00 pm – 7:05 pm: Michelle Cann, piano

Lauded as “exquisite” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and “a pianist of sterling artistry” by Gramophone, Michelle Cann is one of the most sought-after pianists of her generation and a leading interpreter of the music of Florence Price. Recent engagements include appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her honors include the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. A committed educator, she joined the Curtis Institute of Music piano faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies. In 2024, she was named the inaugural Christel DeHaan Artistic Partner of the American Pianists Association, responsible for artistic oversight of the American Pianists Awards. This is Michelle Cann’s Savannah Music Festival debut.

Florence Price Fantasie Nègre Nos. 1, 2, 4
Margaret Bonds Spiritual Suite
Betty Jackson King Four Seasonal Sketches
Nora Holt Negro Dance Opus 25, No. 1
Hazel Scott
Improvisation on Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C-sharp minor
Improvisation on Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Location: Trinity United Methodist Church

Ticket: $58.00

Click here to buy tickets.

8:00 pm – 10:20 pm: Shovels & Rope / Langhorne Slim

A co-bill of special acoustic performances!

Shovels & Rope’s Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst are an acclaimed folk-rock duo from Charleston, SC. This intimate acoustic set will feature songs from their Fall 2023 Bare Bones tour, where they performed across 16 cities on the East Coast and Midwest. The duo will perform stripped-down renditions of songs from their celebrated body of work, including their most recent album, Something is Working Up Above My Head.

Langhorne Slim is a beloved and acclaimed American singer, songwriter and performer. Over the last two decades, he has merged a stew of styles to create a sound that is unique, powerful and raw. From campfires to dive bars, and theaters to arenas, Slim brings an intimacy and edge through his innate ability to connect with his audiences. Though he’s been at this for the better part of his days, it somehow feels like he’s just getting started.

Location: Lucas Theatre for the Arts

Tickets: $39 – $79

Click here to buy tickets.

We want to hear from you if you have an event to share or updates to this event.