The full 2026 lineup will be announced in the months before the festival. This page will fill in as names are confirmed. For now, here is a sense of who tends to play and how the program comes together.
Who you will hear
The festival has always mixed visiting headliners with the best players from Atlantic Canada and a solid crew of local talent. Some years lean more toward straight ahead jazz, some years toward blues and roots. The thread through all of it is players who can really play, and a crowd that knows the difference.
Expect a mix of:
- National and international headliners on the main stage
- East Coast jazz and blues artists who have built a following across the region
- Island musicians, many of whom came up through the local school band programs and went on to study jazz at university
- Smaller ensembles in the church series and late night rooms, where the playing gets looser
Past lineups have included Juno winners, ECMA nominees, and players who have toured with some of the biggest names in Canadian music. The festival has a long history of catching artists on the way up before they got much bigger.
How the lineup gets picked
The committee starts working on the next festival almost as soon as the last one ends. Suggestions come from the board, from returning artists, from other festival programmers, and from the audience. If there is someone you think should play, send a note through the contact page. It gets read.
The final lineup has to balance a few things. Budget, of course. Availability, which is always the hard part. And a program that makes sense across the run of the festival, so no two nights feel the same.
Artist bios
Once the lineup is confirmed, each artist gets a short bio on the event listing. Nothing too long. Enough to give you a sense of who they are and what they play. If you want to dig deeper, most of them have websites, Bandcamp pages, and music on the streaming services. We will link where we can.
Workshops
Some of the visiting players run workshops during the festival. These are informal sessions where they talk about how they approach their instrument, answer questions, and sometimes play a little. They are open to anyone, not just musicians. Details go up on the venues page closer to the festival.
Stay tuned
Lineup announcements will land here first, then go out on social media. If you want to be the first to know, follow the festival accounts. We do not send a lot of email, but the ones we do send have the important stuff in them.