Written by The 56th edition of the Siena Jazz International Summer Workshop kicked off last week, and for the two weeks that follow, this small Tuscan city becomes, once again, one of the more serious addresses in the jazz calendar.
I’ve visited Siena many times over the years, so this is a city I know well, and in my opinion one of the best spots Tuscany has to offer, especially at this time of year. Here at Jazz in Europe we have followed and supported the seminar for a long time. Festivals come and go, and plenty of them chase novelty for its own sake; Siena Jazz has never needed to. It has built its reputation slowly, through education first and performance second, and that order of priorities is exactly why it still matters.
The Academy’s roots go back to 1977, and the International Summer Workshop remains its flagship project, backed by Italy’s National Fund for Live Entertainment. Students, teachers and working professionals converge on the city for a fortnight of study and performance, and the results of that work are visible on stage almost every night. It’s a model I’ve seen plenty of institutions attempt and few pull off with the same consistency.
Roberto Spadoni
Tonight Siena Jazz officially inaugurates the 56th edition with a concert at 9.30pm in Piazza Provenzano where the Siena Jazz University Orchestra, under the direction of Roberto Spadoni, premieres “Bud Powell and La Folia – Visions and Fragility of a Genius”, a new work marking the sixtieth anniversary of Powell’s death. Spadoni has taken some of Powell’s most exposed compositions, Hallucination, Un Poco Loco, Tempus Fugit and Wail among them, and rebuilt them for large ensemble, threading them against variations on “La Folia”, the centuries-old melody that has drawn composers back to it again and again. It’s an ambitious pairing on paper: a mid-century bebop architect set alongside a Renaissance-era folk theme. Saxophonist Pietro Tonolo and trumpeter Alex Sipiagin join the orchestra as guest soloists, and both have the improvisational nerve to hold their own against writing this dense.
From 28 July, the programme shifts to the Siena Jazz Masters series, staged across Piazza Jacopo della Quercia and the Bastione San Domenico. This is the part of the seminar I’ve always found most compelling, because the groupings on offer exist nowhere else. These aren’t touring bands passing through with a set list they’ve played fifty times already; they’re combinations built specifically for Siena, often bringing together musicians who haven’t shared a stage before. This year’s list is a long one: Jo Lawry, Nguyên Lê, Mark Dresser, Zeno De Rossi, Greg Hutchinson, Lage Lund, Pasquale Mirra, Fabian Almazan, Gerald Clayton, Nicole Mitchell, Jen Shyu, Marquis Hill, Fabrizio Puglisi, Brandon Ross, Thomas Morgan, Savannah Harris, David Linx, Domenico Caliri, Brad Jones, Jason Palmer, Ben van Gelder, Aruán Ortiz, Chad Taylor and James Brandon Lewis all feature across the run. It’s the kind of bill that rewards showing up for more than one night.
David Linx
The “Chigiana Meets Siena Jazz” collaboration also returns this year, pairing David Linx with the Choir of the Cathedral of Siena, “Guido Chigi Saracini”, for an original production staged in the Church of Sant’Agostino. It’s a partnership between the city’s two major musical institutions that has produced some genuinely unusual evenings in past editions, and the setting alone, a working church rather than a concert hall, tends to change how the music is heard.
Underneath all of this sits the teaching. Eight instrument and ensemble classes run through the two weeks, including a new miscellany class this year, and the seminar closes, as it always does, with final concerts in which students share the stage with the teachers they’ve spent the fortnight studying under. It’s easy to overlook this part of the programme if you’re only there for the marquee names, but it’s the reason the Masters concerts sound the way they do year after year. The pipeline is real.
The 2026 theme is creation, not as a slogan but as a working principle: new commissions, new ensembles, new relationships between musicians who may never otherwise have been in the same room. That’s been true of Siena Jazz for as long as I’ve been paying attention to it, and it’s why I keep coming back. The 56th edition runs through 7 August. Tickets for tonight’s opening concert are subject to availability; reservations can be made at bookyourseat@sienajazz.it.
Last modified: July 27, 2026
