Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival

Tonight: Celebrate the 2026 NEA Jazz Masters! 🎶

Blues to Green is proud to celebrate this year’s honorees: Carmen Lundy, Airto Moreira, Patrice Rushen, and Rhonda Hamilton, recipient of the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy.

Blues to Green Executive Director Kristin Neville was honored to serve on the panel that selected this year’s NEA Jazz Masters, helping recognize artists and advocates whose extraordinary contributions have shaped jazz and its legacy.

The NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert takes place tonight at 8 PM PT. Can’t watch live? The concert will be archived and available to watch afterward on the NEA website.

Watch live or later: https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz

Congratulations to the 2026 NEA Jazz Masters!

💙Blues to Green 💚 sends
A huge THANK YOU to Mayor Domenic Sarno, Springfield Focus TV / WTCC 90.7, and No Sleep Productions for helping shine a light on the work of Blues to Green and the power of community!
Real change happens when we come together, show up, and lend a hand. 🙌🏽🌎

Now we’re calling on YOU: Get involved. Volunteer. Bring your energy, your ideas, and your heart. Every helping hand makes a difference!

💚 Blues to Green — turning community spirit into community action.

The 2026 Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival proved once again that music can connect generations, cultures, and communities. From the soulful power of the blues to the vibrant energy of jazz and roots, Springfield came alive with incredible talent, passionate audiences, and a shared love of music.

A huge congratulations to everyone who made this year’s festival a success—artists, organizers, volunteers, sponsors, and, most importantly, the community that showed up and showed out! 💚🎶

Blues to Green. Roots to future. Springfield to the world.

💙💚Blues to Green: A Journey Through Music, Culture, and Community
What a beautiful journey it is when music becomes a bridge between communities, cultures, and generations.
Our Blues to Green work is rooted in a bold, transformative mission: using the power of music, arts, and cultural connection to inspire healthier, stronger, more vibrant communities. It is visionary, courageous, inclusive, restorative, and deeply community-centered work—work that reminds us that culture can be a catalyst for connection and positive change.

Today, that mission takes us on a special journey with the Springfield Jazz and Roots Festival, traveling to Rockport, Massachusetts, to hear and experience the extraordinary Cuban pianist Zahili Zamora.

There is something profoundly powerful about making the journey together—to listen, to learn, to experience another culture, and to allow music to expand our understanding of one another. Zahili Zamora’s artistry carries the rich spirit of Cuba while reaching across borders through rhythm, improvisation, history, and emotion.

This is what Blues to Green is all about: building bridges, opening hearts, celebrating cultural excellence, and creating transformative experiences through music.

From the blues to jazz, from Springfield to Rockport, from the roots of American music to the vibrant traditions of Cuba, we celebrate the beautiful truth that music connects us all.

The journey continues—and the mission grows stronger with every note.