New Mexico Jazz Festival

Founded in 2006, the New Mexico Jazz Festival followed on the work of the Open Arts Foundation's Santa Fe Jazz and International Music Festival (2000-2005) which produced hundreds of concerts and brought an unprecedented wealth of high quality jazz to Santa Fe. In 2006, our inaugural effort presented McCoy Tyner, Branford Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, the Newport Jazz Allstars, and more. In 2007 we expanded our efforts and presented more concerts in both cities including performances by the legendary Sonny Rollins in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We also inaugurated a partnership with the City of Albuquerque's Summerfest by offering 5 hours of music on Civic Plaza— an evening which was free and open to the public and which was capped by a performance by Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra. In 2010 that evening on Civic Plaza moved to Route 66 in Nob Hill and event which features 120 performers on 3 stages and draws 60,000 people.