{"id":88661,"date":"2026-06-15T04:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T04:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/88661\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T04:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T04:27:07","slug":"ottawa-jazz-festival-offers-easier-access-to-world-class-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/88661\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Jazz Festival offers easier access to world-class music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jun 15, 2026 \u2014 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s summer music festival season in the North Country, and especially in the big cities around us.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The audience at the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Photo: Chris Parker \/ Ottawa Jazz Festival<\/p>\n

The 46th annual Ottawa Jazz Festival<\/a> kicks off Thursday, June 18th and runs through June 28th. It features hundreds of world-class musicians on multiple stages, centered in tree-filled Confederation Park in the heart of downtown Ottawa.<\/p>\n

This year, day passes are cheaper, and the public will be allowed to stroll through the park for free.<\/p>\n

David SommersteinOttawa Jazz Festival offers easier access to world-class music<\/p>\n

David Sommerstein caught up with festival director Petr Cancurra for a preview.\u00a0Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n

PETR CANCURRA: So, the two stages [in Confederation Park] are still fenced off, and you can only get into those with a ticket, but you can come through and check out the vibe of the music and go to our vendors. We have a whole new experience. We have some really cool new food vendors, and we have some really great drinks. We upped our game in wine, I will note.<\/p>\n

DAVID SOMMERSTEIN: It sounds like it’s more like a festival experience, with the public milling around. You can listen to the music a little bit, and decide if you want to buy a ticket.<\/p>\n

CANCURRA: Exactly. And those tickets are more accessible than ever. So we’re just hoping that more people come, more people enjoy it, and hopefully buy tickets so that we can come back and do it again year after year.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ottawa Jazz Festival runs through Sunday, June 28 in Canada’s capital. Photo: Chris Parker \/ Ottawa Jazz Festival<\/p>\n

SOMMERSTEIN: Well, let’s talk about the music. Tell me about the marquee musicians who are going to be opening up the festival.<\/p>\n

CANCURRA: Wyclef Jean is going to be opening the festival on June 18th on Thursday. He’s, of course, the great rapper, singer, part of the Fugees with Miss Lauryn Hill. He’s the man. It’s been a long time since he’s been here. We programmed that whole first day around him. It’s hip-hop-based.<\/p>\n

SOMMERSTEIN: Who is 646YF4T? I don’t even know how to pronounce it right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CANCURRA: Yeah, so if you look at those numbers and letters, it actually reads as “Baby Fat”! 646YF4T is Daniel Caesar’s brother. He’s totally up and coming, and he sounds fantastic. In the spirit of a partnership with Ottawa Tourism, we decided to make this first day around hip hop and get some new up-and-coming folks. So, he’s coming in from Toronto. I’m pretty excited.<\/p>\n

SOMMERSTEIN: There are a couple of big New Orleans bands that I’m super excited about. The Soul Rebels and Galactic are playing during the festival.<\/p>\n

CANCURRA: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, the Soul Rebels are the real deal brass band from New Orleans. They’ve collaborated with everyone. They bring their A game.<\/p>\n

And Galactic has one of my favorite New Orleans drummers, Stanton Moore. So I mean any chance I get to see anything with him, it does not disappoint. There’s a fierceness from New Orleans bands. Every single time a New Orleans band comes, it’s like no prisoners.<\/p>\n

\"Questlove<\/a><\/p>\n

Questlove of The Roots at the Ottawa jazz Festival in 2025. Photo: David Sommerstein<\/p>\n

SOMMERSTEIN: I ask you this every year. You’re always reluctant to pick a favorite. But who is somebody who hasn’t been to the Ottawa Jazz Festival before, or hasn’t been for a long time, who you’re really excited to see?<\/p>\n

CANCURRA: My instinct is going to tell me ADHD. They’re playing the National Arts Centre Azrieli Studio. It’s a group from Iceland. I went to the Reykjavik Jazz Festival last August, and I absolutely fell in love with these guys. They’ve actually been around for a long time. They’re super prolific. And they kind of straddle Nordic jazz, indie rock kind of space. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s just magical. They’re all incredible musicians fronted by saxophone player \u00d3skar Gu\u00f0j\u00f3nsson, who has become my newest obsession as a saxophone player.<\/p>\n

Our late night stage has Larnell Lewis, Soul Rebels, The Dip, I’m pretty excited about The Dip coming. That’s going to be a party. There’s an incredible drummer, SALIN, who’s more world music oriented, also Kassa Overall. This is more dancey, energetic, and fun. It’s a pretty stacked series.<\/p>\n

On the main stage, probably the thing I’m looking forward to the most is St. Vincent with the National Arts Centre Orchestra.\u00a0St. Vincent is really creative and one of the great songwriters of our day. The NAC Orchestra always gives me goosebumps. The orchestra is going to be conducted by Jules Buckley, who is a really big deal in the classical world. He did the original show with St. Vincent at the Royal Albert Hall in London. So, he has a lot of influence and the way he conducts an orchestra is like a fine musician himself.<\/p>\n

SOMMERSTEIN: You always have to contend with the Montreal Jazz Festival, this giant behemoth down the road. It’s even overlapping a bit with your festival. What’s the identity of the Ottawa Jazz Festival?<\/p>\n

CANCURRA: Well, one of them is the venues we have. Confederation Park is a large park, but it’s not a huge field, right? And so we can fit 10,000 people in there, but it feels intimate, no matter what. As far as the big names, that’s something we always think about. We’re not going after top 40 stuff. We’re going after jazz-centric or jazz-adjacent. I’m a musician and an audiophile and all those labels. So I value music that’s real, that’s authentic, that tells a story, and there are many ways of doing that right, and even though I’m a jazz musician, I welcome all music that fulfills that purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jun 15, 2026 \u2014 It\u2019s summer music festival season in the North Country, and especially in the big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[415,1445,1444,389,61],"class_list":["post-88661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-arts","tag-festival","tag-jazz","tag-music","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}