2019 Lineup / Mixed Genre

Dr. Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D., an award-winning jazz composer, guitarist and vocalist, presents a musical banquet from around the world from his native France to his Senegalese and Malian roots. Anchored in bebop, Pascal Bokar has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Donald Byrd, Donald Bailey and Barney Wilen.

Just in her mid-twenties, the soulful Sara Niemietz has already succeeded in the music, film and theater worlds. The Chicago native appears at Summer Fest with guitarist/film composer Snuffy Walden and is best known recently for touring and recording with Scott Bradlee’s smash crossover band Post-Modern Jukebox.

One of the joys of attending a music festival is hearing new discoveries. 2016 Winter Fest audiences got to experience the Northern California debut of trumpeter Marquis Hill’s Blacktet. Now 2018 Summer Fest fans will have a chance to catch the personal project of Makaya McCraven, its bleeding edge drummer, producer and visionary sonic collagist.

Veteran Summer Fest audiences will remember saxophonist Hailey Niswanger from 2015, when she performed with veteran drummer Mike Clark and locally based organ hero Wil Blades. The Portland, Oregon native returns with MAE.SUN, her exciting new project that expands her musical palate and sonic aesthetic.

Kaoru “Kishi Bashi” Ishibashi studied film scoring at the Berklee College of Music before developing his own shimmering non-movie-related (but still cinematic) musical aesthetic. Incorporating live looping, he’ll be collaborating with an equally fearless string quartet at 2018 Summer Fest.

Trumpeter Theo Croker has family and stylistic ties to jazz’s grand history. Combining this deep understanding of jazz tradition with funk, hip-hop and avant-garde approaches, he creates a potent brew of traditional and contemporary sounds.

Stylisically eclectic singer/songwriter Kat Edmonson has a compelling backstory for her latest album, Old Fashioned Gal. The creative jazz-rooted artist explains how the 11 originals on her fourth and most recent album make up the components of a proper movie musical that she first concocted while under the weather:

Pianist Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera had established quite a career in Cuba before migrating to Minnesota in 2002 and combining his European classical schooling and learned Afro-Cuban artistry into a dazzling personal musical style.