Announcing year-long series Jazz Is Staten Island honoring 250 years of diverse cultural heritage and artistic contributions
Presented by Universal Temple of the Arts and Snug Harbor in collaboration with the African Film Festival and Jazzmobile
April 17, 2026 | Staten Island, NY – From concerts and exhibitions to scholarly talks and film screenings, the upcoming Jazz Is Staten Island event series explores jazz’s vibrant influence on Staten Island, highlighting local artists, historical figures, and significant cultural movements.
This exciting project is produced by a partnership among Universal Temple of the Arts and Snug Harbor, with presenting partners including the African Film Festival, Humanities New York, and Jazzmobile in honor of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, with events to take place between April and December 2026 at various locations around Snug Harbor, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301.
Jazz is a quintessential American art form, with roots in African American spiritual and secular culture alongside European musical influences. Its rise in the 19th and 20th centuries shaped American popular culture as it spread across the globe. Jazz Is Staten Island features a roster of current notable Staten Island jazz musicians: Santi Debriano, Ray Scro, Sylvester Scott, Jazztronauts, Dr. Darrell Smith, Mike Morreale, Voelker Goetze, Julie Maniscalco, Paul Korn, Jeannine Otis, Kevin Norton, Miho Sasaki, and many more.
The participating partner organizations bring a diverse range of expertise and programming to Jazz Is Staten Island, positioning this series as a must-see with local flair and citywide appeal. Universal Temple of the Arts has long embraced the American-born music genre of jazz with the intent of both preserving and promoting jazz arts, presenting the annual Staten Island JAZZ Festival for over three decades—many times at the Music Hall at Snug Harbor prior to its renovation. Snug Harbor has also welcomed Jazzmobile’s SummerFest to their South Meadow Stage for many years, as well as hosted the annual African Film Festival Summer Series at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, showcasing African and diaspora filmmakers’ unique storytelling through the moving image.
Jazz Is Staten Island kicked off on March 4 with a scholarly talk in partnership with the Smithsonian Affiliates about the legacy of jazz through the lens of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. The event featured Dr. Krystal Klingenberg, Curator, National Museum of American History, with performers including
Bernice Brooks (drums), Kal Ferretti (trumpet), Yuuki Koike (saxophone), Jeanine Otis (curator, narrator, vocalist), Miho Sasaki (piano), Niranjana (Nina) Shankar (vocalist), Maya Gilbert Smith/Maya Da Poet (poet), Victoria Montero (bass).
Spring/Summer Event Schedule: Jazz Is Staten Island
Jazz Is Staten Island: An Evening of Jazz Fusion featuring the Jazztronauts and the DLG3 Trio
April 18, 7 PM | The Carpenter’s Shop at Snug Harbor
https://snug-harbor.org/event/jazz-is-staten-island-an-evening-of-jazz-fusion/
As we celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month, we are excited to treat Staten Island audiences to the rhythmic and groove driven genre of Jazz Fusion – an idiom of jazz that utilizes many electric instruments. Featuring the performances of two stylistically different groups under the umbrella of fusion: the Jazztronauts and the DLG3 trio.
Photoville Festival
May 16-30 | Brooklyn Bridge Park
Learn more at https://photoville.nyc/
HERShot Productions, led by Nataki Hewing, is a grant funding program to empower girls to use photography to tell visual stories about themselves and their community. For the Photoville Festival, HERShot has teamed up with Jazz Is Staten Island artists to capture the essence of the local jazz community and to stage A Great Day in Staten Island photo tribute inspired by the iconic photo taken by Art Kane in 1958 and jazz luminaries in Harlem.
Speaking of Revolution: In A Different Key, A Community Conversation on Jazz with Humanities New York
June 17, 6 PM | The Carpenter’s Shop at Snug Harbor
Register here
This community conversation at Snug Harbor is part of Speaking of Revolution—a statewide series developed by Humanities New York. This gathering is one of several across New York where neighbors explore how ideas of rupture and renewal continue to shape civic and cultural life. Each event begins with a short reading or image, chosen locally, to spark open, reflective dialogue. There’s no panel, no lecture, and no pressure to have the right answer—just a chance to listen, share, and think together. For this event, Staten Island-based musician and cultural organizer Darrell Smith will open the evening with a brief musical gesture to ground us in place and tone. From there, we’ll move into a community-led conversation grounded in a shared reading—chosen with Darrell and Snug Harbor in the coming weeks. As one of New York’s most historically layered boroughs, Staten Island offers a powerful setting to reflect on themes of migration, memory, labor, and imagination in the context of revolution, past and future.
African Film Festival: Soundtrack to a Coup d’etat
July 16, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM | Snug Harbor (Location to be announced)
United Nations, 1960: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe, and the U.S. State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup. Director Johan Grimonprez captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in this magnificent essay film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.
Jazzmobile: SUMMERFEST featuring Bobby Sanabria Nonet
August 9, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM | South Meadow Stage
Jazzmobile returns to Snug Harbor’s South Meadow for a “Summer’s Eve Concert on the Lawn” — celebrating 61 consecutive years of our legendary music series, SUMMERFEST! Join us as we honor this milestone with soul-stirring performances, timeless rhythms, and the magic of live jazz in an outdoor setting.
Fall programming affiliated with the Jazz Is Staten Island series will be announced at a later date.
Universal Temple of the Arts (utasi.org)
Founded in 1967, Universal Temple of the Arts (UTA) is an arts, cultural, and educational nonprofit organization with a rich history of providing life enrichment programs to Staten Island residents. UTA is one of the few, Black-led organizations in Staten Island. Since its inception in 1967, we have valued diversity and intentionally hired artists from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences – UTA has always used art to build, nurture, and heal communities. Although our programming spans all age groups, UTA strategically focuses considerable resources toward programming for low-income Black and Brown youth to provide cultural exposure and cultivate artistic appreciation. UTA Programs serve the community by providing hands-on, experiential, and creative artistic outlets that uplift, enlighten, inspire, and facilitate unique, expanded learning and enrichment opportunities that only the arts can foster.
About Snug Harbor(snug-harbor.org)
Snug Harbor is an expansive culture park on Staten Island where arts, nature, education, and history converge to offer dynamic programming, events, and festivals to our diverse community. Located less than 1.5 miles from the Staten Island Ferry and easily accessible by public transportation, Snug Harbor welcomes nearly 500,000 visitors each year. Visitors can explore multiple museums, performances, festivals, a farm, and 83 acres of gardens, parkland, woodland, and wetlands.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Meredith Sladek
[email protected]
(718) 425-3515