INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION

Our mission is to influence the discovery and celebration of live jazz performance and music education through community engagement anchored by a world-class jazz festival in downtown Tucson.

During Festival

The Tucson Jazz Festival Education Program provides opportunities for students of all ages, especially in local underserved communities. During the festival we provide master classes and workshops, bringing professional artists into schools to share their experiences and talents. Our goal with these programs is to inspire students, not only musically, but also creatively through any and all facets of life and learning that may follow a presentation. 

We host student performances either through a matinee performance at a venue, such as at the Fox Theatre, or through in-school performances. And whenever we have the ability to do so, we offer free concert tickets to students who may be studying the artform/instrument of the artist being presented.

A new series, TJF Talks, speaks to our adult learners. This was new during our 2025 Festival, and it provides a more intimate experience for an audience to listen to in-person interviews of different festival artists who share stories and offer insight on their careers, approaches to music, and life experiences.

“The impact of having that access to artists of that caliber to come through and be able to have some facetime with students is just tremendously amazing.”                                                                                                                                             
Morani Sanders

Director of Bands, Tucson High Magnet School

Future with Tucson Children’s Museum

Field Trips always play an important role in a student’s educational experience.  When reflecting upon some of the most impactful and memorable moments in one’s education, the experiential learning that takes place on a field trip always ranks at the top.  

We are working with the Tucson Children’s Museum to create a long-term sustainable field trip program that will inspire our youngest students.  Professional musicians/teachers will work with students with real instruments to create an improvised piece of music inspired by the environment/cultural/history that surrounds us all.  

Opening minds to creative thinking skills has a huge impact on a student’s life.   Opening minds to seeing, hearing, and experiencing new things has a huge impact on a student’s life. Bringing joy to a student’s life makes a huge impact. And while these field trips are great at the moment, the skills and inspiration learned travel back to the classroom, elevate potential in core classes, and continue to inspire. 

 

“[Bringing] music into our field trips, bringing music into our outdoor events, bringing music into our free days, making sure that there’s ways for us to expose our families and our community to the things that you’re [TJF] doing and to really bring about so many more engagement opportunities with music is huge for families.  Huge for kids.”
Hilary Van Alsburg

Executive Director, Tucson Children’s Museum

Special Projects

For TJF2025 we partnered with the UofA School Gardens Program, Tucson’s City of Gastronomy headed by Chef Janos, Utterback Middle School, and Tucson Unified School District’s African American Student Services to create an amazingly impactful event, the TJF COMMUNITY COOKOUT.

The cookout brought together the students and families from the neighborhood surrounding the school, with TJF Artist, Endea Owens,  performing an inspirational performance coupled with food prepared by Chef Janos and crew that was grown and harvested by students in the UA Gardens program. 

Food and music brought a community together. The cookout created a memorable and impactful moment for all who attended;  both those who volunteered their time as well as those who were served.  The event elevated this smaller community and our larger community as a whole. 

TJF will be modeling and presenting similar projects of this nature in the future in order to engage our local community and make sizable impacts on smaller populations where we can.

“We had kids growing produce, harvesting produce. And then for those families to see that produce come back to the school and prepared by amazing City of Gastronomy chefs and served up in an atmosphere that was electric with amazing music–it was an amazing community event.”
Moses Thompson

Gardens Director School, UA School

K-12

  • Create opportunities to bring more students to view TJF concerts
  • Continue and expand the student matinee program to become a permanent fixture within the festival
  • Create opportunities for local and national jazz musicians to do short versions of larger performances
  • Bring high school students to evening jazz performances and events
  • Bring jazz artists into schools for residencies
  • Create and implement jazz specific curriculum in local schools

HIGH SCHOOL/UNIVERSITY

  • Create more artist residencies for college/HS music students
  • Present artists outside Tucson Jazz Festival to offer master classes to students
  • Create performing opportunities for graduates of TJF supported institutions
  • Continue to support Tucson Jazz Institute artist in residence program as well as creating more fundraising opportunities for TJI

ADULTS/LIFELONG LEARNERS

  • Providing jazz history and cultural seminars for active adult learners such as The Learning Curve, UA Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
  • Creating programming for active adult communities such as Splendido, Saddlebrooke, La Posada
  • Partner with Alzheimer’s units or organizations for specialty jazz programming