SIENA&Toscana

Events & Seasonal Calendar

Siena Jazz 2026: The 56th Season, from the Campo to the Contrade

Two weeks after the Chigiana Festival filled Siena with orchestras and opera, the city changed register entirely. For a fortnight either side of the turn of the month, the Fortezza Medicea and the piazze below it were the temporary centre of the international jazz world. The 56th season has now closed.

The 2026 edition, as it ran: the 56th concert season opened on 21 July and closed on 7 August, with the International Summer Workshop itself running from 28 July to 7 August. The public high point came early — a free open-air double bill in Piazza del Campo on 23 July, photographed here — and the season ended quietly in a contrada garden, with the students' final ensemble concerts on 6 and 7 August in the Tartuca's Orto dei Tolomei. Demand had been such that several instrument tracks filled before the season began.
Concert stage set against the Palazzo Pubblico in Piazza del Campo at dusk, Torre del Mangia above, chair rows filling for Siena Jazz's free concert on 23 July 2026
Piazza del Campo, 23 July 2026 — the stage set for Siena Jazz's Miles Davis Songbook and Tranescape, the closing night of Sboccia l'Estate. Photograph: Siena & Toscana.

Nearly Fifty Years of Jazz in a Medici Fortress

Siena Jazz — which operates as the Accademia Nazionale del Jazz — was founded by Franco Caroni in 1977 and is registered today as an associazione. It has established itself as Italy's principal centre for jazz education, and in 2011 became the first non-state institution in Italy authorised by the Ministry (MIUR) to award advanced, legally recognised music qualifications specifically in jazz.

Its home is the Fortezza Medicea, the sixteenth-century fortress built for Cosimo I de' Medici, now housing teaching space and the Centro Nazionale Studi sul Jazz "Arrigo Polillo", a serious research archive.

How the 2026 Season Unfolded

The centrepiece was the International Summer Workshop, which ran from 28 July to 7 August — its 56th edition, and the course that started the whole institution in 1977. The wider concert season had opened a week earlier, on 21 July. More than 150 students from 27 countries applied for 2026; several instrument tracks — trumpet, trombone, piano, drums, and voice — were full ahead of the season.

Artistic director Silvia Bolognesi built the 2026 programme around a single theme:creazione — creation. Rather than straightforward tribute concerts, the year's original productions reinterpreted the legacies of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bud Powell through new compositions and ensembles, made by students working alongside faculty. The season's concerts began on 21 July at the Auditorium of the Conservatorio "Rinaldo Franci" with the Frost Big Band of the University of Miami, conducted by John Daversa.

On 23 July the programme reached Piazza del Campo for its marquee free concert: a "Miles Davis Songbook" set followed by "Tranescape," a tribute to John Coltrane — bringing the creazione theme to the city's greatest stage, with a cast that included Ralph Alessi, Silvia Bolognesi, Roberto Spadoni and, as special guest, the vocalist David Linx. It doubled as the closing night of the Comune's Sboccia l'Estate season. The inaugural concert of the 56th seminari internazionali followed on 27 July in Piazza Provenzano.

From 28 July the season moved through the city rather than staying in one hall. Piazza Jacopo della Quercia took the concerts of 28 and 29 July. A jam session followed on 30 July at the Contrada della Lupa's Fonti di Ovile, where the first Final Concerts of the Ensemble Classes were then staged on 31 July and 1 August. On 2 August at 21:30, "Chigiana meets Siena Jazz — No voice is an island" joined the two festivals for an evening at the Chiesa di Sant'Agostino. The Siena Jazz Masters — faculty and international guests — played Piazza Jacopo della Quercia on 3 and 4 August and the Bastione San Domenico on 5 August. The season then closed with the students' Final Concerts of the Ensemble Classes at the Contrada della Tartuca's Orto dei Tolomei on 6 and 7 August, both at 20:00.

One note on the record: Siena Jazz published start times for only part of its 2026 calendar. Where the organiser never published one, none is given above.

The Character of the Fortnight

Unlike the Chigiana Festival's formal concert programme, Siena Jazz had an open, workshop-city energy — student ensembles rehearsing in fortress courtyards, faculty and touring names in informal sets, and a genuinely international crowd of young musicians filling the city's bars and piazzas for two and a half weeks. The venues told the same story: a season that began in a conservatory auditorium and ended in a contrada's walled garden. It rewarded travellers who wanted to feel a living scene rather than attend a single formal concert — and it is worth knowing that about the edition to come.

Practical Information

What ran in 2026: concert season 21 July – 7 August 2026; International Summer Workshop 28 July – 7 August, 56th edition.
Venues used: the Auditorium Rinaldo Franci, Piazza del Campo, Piazza Provenzano, Piazza Jacopo della Quercia, the Bastione San Domenico, the Chiesa di Sant'Agostino, and the contrade of Lupa (Fonti di Ovile) and Tartuca (Orto dei Tolomei). The Academy itself is based at the Fortezza Medicea.
Looking ahead: the 2027 dates had not been published when this page was last updated on 9 August 2026. Siena Jazz publishes its calendar at sienajazz.it; enquiries go to info@sienajazz.it or +39 0577 271401.
Still running this summer: the Chigiana International Festival continues to 1 September 2026.

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By the Siena & Toscana editors