Letter From The Director

Warm Wishes

Thank you all for an incredible year! This year, we’ve engaged a wider variety of artists, connected with eager new audiences, broadened our aperture of community coverage, deepened our connection to emerging composers, and increased exposure and accessibility to jazz in Seattle. And we’ve been rewarded by a year of unforgettable music.

The exceptional artists on this year’s spring and summer concert series – including the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Samara Joy, Tord Gustavsen, Lakecia Benjamin, Immanuel Wilkins, Mark Turner, Steve Lehman, and Nduduzo Makhathini – would be at home on any major jazz festival marquee. Those concerts set the stage for our own fall festival.

Our recent festival was remarkable on many fronts. While each day brought a new story, with its own distinct value, the festival schedule overall was powerful in capturing this particularly diverse and fertile moment in the expansion of the art form. The music is in good hands, on the stage and in the audience. And the future is bright. 

We’re looking forward to wrapping up the year with our annual concert of the Sacred Music of Duke Ellington. We’re very grateful to Michael Brockman and the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra for their dedication to the stewardship of this important body of work, and we’re proud to have produced these concerts for 35 years in this community. We hope you’ll join us, the SRJO, the Northwest Chamber Chorus and The Sound of the Northwest, vocal soloists Robert Neal and Nichol Eskridge, and tap dancer Cipher Goings for the presentation of this soul-stirring music on December 30 at Town Hall.

We appreciate all of the hard-working artists and educators who nourish the vitality of our culture and the fans and concertgoers who support it. As we move into this season of reflection and giving, we encourage your generosity in recognizing this value. 

Please make a donation to Earshot Jazz. Since 1984, the Earshot organization has enriched Seattle with one-of-a-kind concerts and programs that celebrate the music and the people of this community.

With gratitude and warm holiday wishes,

–JOHN GILBREATH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR