History

Since 1962, the Reno Jazz Festival has proudly hosted jazz students, instructors, performers and fans at the University of Nevada, Reno to play, listen and learn. The three-day festival provides a non-competitive forum for students to perform for professional musicians, music educators and peers, and to learn from jazz masters via clinics, workshops and concerts.

Recognized as one of the best of its kind, the Reno Jazz Festival has been lauded by the San Francisco Chronicle as "showcasing music's future."

The Festival offers public performances by world-renowned musicians. Our guest artists represent some of the most creative and celebrated musicians in jazz history: Melissa Aldana, Art Blakey, Ray Brown, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Michael Brecker, Jon Hendricks, Dave Holland, Bobby Hutcherson, Charlie Haden, Maria Schneider, Ravi Coltrane and many others; the list goes on and on.

Prior to the pandemic, the Festival welcomed approximately 300 school groups, 9,000 participants and 60 clinicians, performers, professional musicians and music educators.

Each Festival strives to ensure that every guest participant leaves with greater knowledge, appreciation and love of music and the world of jazz. It is truly the student participants who make the Festival a vibrant epicenter of jazz each April.