Umbria Jazz: a success that continues and goes from strength to strength
With Italy dotted with festivals in every corner and covering every type of performance, maintaining a central role and a distinct identity is no small feat: not least because both public and private organisations, particularly in the summer, put on an impressive array of events, all vying for an audience hungry for music, books, cinema and literature.
Umbria Jazz is one of the oldest institutions, an event with which locals, tourists and an entire region identify – a brand that has brought music and more to half the world, ever since its first, adventurous edition in 1973.
Over time, this has become a cornerstone of the season’s soundtrack – a festival concept that offers, in layers, a variety of moods, sounds, characters and rather diverse show ideas.
For this 2026 edition, the organisers are claiming victory for a number of reasons: the number of tickets sold – 46,000 – takings of over three million euros – and, above all, the sheer number of concerts, including free ones, and the number of spectators involved across the city of Perugia, which was awash with music for ten days, from morning until late at night. The format of such a well-attended and complex festival must, by its very nature, take into account the tastes and needs of many, if not all. This is why the ‘jazz’ label has, over time, necessarily had to encompass a broad spectrum of artists – something that is, incidentally, the case at the majority of major international festivals.
And whilst top-tier mainstream acts such as Sting and Zucchero are booked to meet box-office demands – and are greeted with triumphant sell-out crowds – this year’s Umbria Jazz has also welcomed Gilberto Gil, the last of the great Brazilian singers, Elvis Costello, a refined singer-songwriter who is never trite, a young up-and-comer from the latest wave of electric blues, Christone Kingfish Ingram and then Laurie Anderson: in other words, the most credible pioneer of electronic multimedia, who, through lyrics, sounds and projections, recalled and referenced her heroes, Ginsberg and Dylan, Buddha and Lou Reed, Gertrude Stein and William Burroughs, “Language is a virus”, before bringing the performance to a close with a short Tai Chi lesson, shared with the audience.
