Ayden Jay Allida’s original music explores the journey of coming out as transgender through composition, spoken word, and collaborative performance. Bringing together a band whose members reflect intersecting queer and BIPOC identities, the project blends contemporary jazz with personal narrative, advocacy, and emotional openness. Allida’s work aims not only to tell a story, but to build empathy and belonging—creating a performance that is vulnerable, educational, and rooted in the belief that music can help people better understand one another.

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Orfea Rising is an original multi-movement work by Shelly Rudolph that brings together jazz, chamber sonorities, improvisation, poetry, and dance in a contemporary reimagining of myth. Centering a feminine voice that descends, remembers, and returns, the suite unfolds as an immersive performance shaped by vibraphone, cello, bass, drums, saxophone, and voice, with movement woven throughout. Both intimate and expansive, the work reflects Rudolph’s longstanding commitment to crossing artistic disciplines while remaining rooted in jazz expression, storytelling, and emotional depth.

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Led by baritone saxophonist Orion White, Wen’ipt is an Indigenous-focused contemporary jazz combo that performs music created, arranged, or inspired by Indigenous artists from across the United States and Canada. The project brings together original compositions, cultural storytelling, and a jazz language shaped by identity, history, and lived experience. For White, Wen’ipt is both a musical and communal offering—one that builds connection between Portland’s jazz scene and Indigenous presence, while opening space for reflection, learning, and celebration.

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The Collective, curated by Dae Bryant, is a spiritually grounded, interdisciplinary performance that blends original music, poetry, sound design, and improvisation. Inspired by the lineage of A Love Supreme and other landmark works by John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, and Pharoah Sanders, the project explores jazz as a language of connection, truth, and transformation. Rooted in Bryant’s background in gospel, psychology, and community-based performance, the work invites audiences into a shared experience of reflection, presence, and collective care.

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W4RP Trio is a boundary-pushing ensemble whose original music moves fluidly between jazz, contemporary classical, hip-hop, and electronic influences. Comprised of pianist Mikael Darmanie, violinist/electric bassist Josh Henderson, cellist J.Y. Lee, and drummer Rick Martinez, the group creates a dynamic, genre-defying sound shaped by collective composition and global touring experience.

Their current program features material from Sermon of the MatriarK, a work inspired by Afro-diasporic folklore that merges rhythmic intensity, experimental textures, and compositional depth. Known for their electrifying live performances, W4RP integrates elements such as custom lighting design and live scoring to film, creating an immersive concert experience that expands beyond traditional jazz presentation.

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Four for King honors the life, spirit, and artistry of Nancy King through newly created arrangements for vocal quartet and rhythm section. Led by Sherry Alves and featuring collaborators from multiple generations of Portland’s jazz community, the project draws from released and unreleased recordings spanning decades of King’s career. Blending performance, archival material, and close listening, the work offers both a celebration and a reimagining of Nancy King’s legacy, bringing her influence into dialogue with today’s vocal artists and audiences.

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Led by trumpeter and composer Sam Dechenne, Bang Bang Experience is a seven-piece ensemble featuring brass, drums, and percussion in a sound shaped by international brass bands, funk and reggae horn sections, Latin American and West African drumming, and jazz improvisation. Built from a cross-section of Portland’s music communities, the band presents original compositions in a highly interactive live format that emphasizes ensemble precision, rhythmic depth, and shared momentum. Their performances are festive, tightly arranged, and designed to leave a strong impression.

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Jessie Marquez is a Latin jazz vocalist whose work is deeply shaped by her family roots in Havana and her long creative relationship with Cuban music and musicians. Jessie Marquez y Su Conjunto Cantando con CUBA centers original repertoire and new arrangements that expand the Filin tradition through cross-cultural influences, including jazz, Brazilian music, and bilingual lyricism. Developed in collaboration with Cuban artists from afar, the project reflects decades of artistic exchange and offers Portland audiences a richly layered performance grounded in cultural connection, musical innovation, and emotional depth.

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Orbits Trio is Grant Richards’ newest project, presenting original music from a forthcoming debut recording. Built around the classic piano trio format but expanded through prepared piano textures, auxiliary percussion, arco bass, and occasional synthesizer, the group explores the idea of coaction—how profound human experiences often emerge at the meeting point of multiple emotions. With a repertoire rooted in creative music and a close-knit trio sound, Orbits brings detailed composition, improvisational flexibility, and a sense of forward momentum shaped by Richards’ years in New York.

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Domo Branch Quintet brings together a group of Portland musicians to present original music reflecting life in America today. Rooted in Branch’s perspective as a drummer, composer, and bandleader, the project responds to the social and political realities of the post-pandemic era, including racism, police brutality, and threats to democracy. With singable melodies, strong rhythmic identity, and a commitment to truth-telling through music, the ensemble creates a performance that is both emotionally resonant and unapologetically direct.

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Sofi Nava brings a vibrant, guitar-centered sound rooted in Latin music, improvisation, and contemporary composition. Her project combines original work with jazz-forward arrangements of traditional Latin American styles including bolero, cumbia, huayno, cha-cha, and Latin jazz. Led by a rising generation of Portland musicians, the ensemble reflects Nava’s Venezuelan heritage, bilingual perspective, and commitment to expanding the possibilities of jazz through rhythm, culture, and live energy.

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Gordon Lee’s sextet brings together original music, virtuosic ensemble playing, and live dance in a performance that honors the natural world and calls for collective care of the planet. Featuring musicians and dancers from a range of generations and cultural backgrounds, the project reflects Lee’s longstanding commitment to collaboration across artistic traditions. With music written specifically for the band and dancers, the performance balances energy, beauty, and message, creating an uplifting experience rooted in hope, movement, and shared purpose.

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Idit Shner’s BCL Quartet features a new composition, Opening and Closing, written for bass clarinet and rhythm section. Inspired by the Jewish tradition of the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the piece draws on ancient Torah tropes while moving through a range of jazz languages, tempos, and expressive moods. Designed as an immersive and spiritual journey, the work highlights the expressive range of the bass clarinet while reflecting Shner’s deep engagement with both tradition and contemporary improvisation.

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Jones & I brings together some of Portland’s most fearless improvisers for a project built on brief melodic cells, dense counterpoint, unusual harmony, and rhythmic design. Andrew Jones draws from avant-garde jazz, 20th-century classical music, hip-hop, art rock, and electronica to create compositions that open into highly interactive improvisation. For this performance, the music is paired with live painting by MOsley WOtta, expanding the work into a vivid conversation between sound, image, and spontaneous creation.

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BrandonLee Cierley presents original music drawn from recent releases, new compositions, and the evolving voice of his working ensemble. Rooted in jazz but shaped by groove, hip-hop, lo-fi, and R&B influences, his music reflects a personal and contemporary approach to composition and improvisation. Performed with a band of frequent collaborators, the project highlights both cohesive ensemble interplay and Cierley’s commitment to presenting music that is sincere, genre-fluid, and grounded in lived experience.

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Unsound is a new project by Noah Simpson that brings together a quintet of longtime collaborators and the visual artists of Spoiler Room for an immersive live performance. Written specifically for the festival, the music explores human creativity in an era of generative content, emphasizing improvisation, responsiveness, and live interaction. As the music unfolds, live camera work and analog visual effects evolve alongside it, creating a shared environment of discovery where sound and image shape one another in real time.

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Aléa Lorén & Co. brings together a band rooted in collaboration, groove, and original songwriting. Drawing from gospel, soul, R&B, and jazz, Lorén’s music is both reflective and high-energy, shaped by a commitment to authenticity and messages of self-love, empowerment, and belonging. Her performances invite audiences into what she describes as a kind of “testimony service,” creating a space where people can feel seen, emboldened, and free to move.

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Lo Steele is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges music and theater through deeply personal storytelling and rich musicality. Drawing from soul, jazz, and contemporary songwriting, her performances explore themes of identity, love, and cultural inheritance. In collaboration with greaterkind, this project brings together groove-driven arrangements, expressive vocals, and a strong sense of narrative, creating a performance that is both intimate and expansive.

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Onion is a Portland-based quintet performing original music shaped by a wide range of influences, from modern jazz and bebop to krautrock, Afro-Cuban music, and hip-hop. Built through a collaborative writing process, their sound combines electric textures, rhythmic invention, and melodic interplay while leaving room for improvisation and spontaneity. The band’s performances move across moods—from dance-driven grooves to contemplative ballads and free improvisation—creating a distinctive and deeply engaged live experience.

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Led by keyboardist Galen Clark and vocalist Sarah Clarke, Outer Orbit is a Portland-based collective rooted in original music, collaboration, and feel-good energy. Drawing from funk, soul, jazz, and a wide range of contemporary influences, the band creates performances that move from deep-pocket grooves to soaring, expressive moments while leaving space for improvisation and individual voice. Built around a multiracial, multigenerational ensemble of working musicians, Outer Orbit brings a strong sense of community to the stage, creating music that is joyful, exploratory, and made to move people.

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