Vancouver International Jazz Festival announces first headliners for milestone year

Summertime may be a ways off, but we’re in a sunny mood thanks to one of our favourite music fests announcing this year’s dates.

The 40th annual Vancouver International Jazz Festival is returning to stages all over the city from Friday, June 20, to Tuesday, July 1.

The full lineup of events will be shared by the Coastal Jazz & Blues Society over the upcoming weeks. To get music lovers jazzed about this year’s fest, organizers announced the first two performances in this summer’s legendary lineup.

 

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First up are headlining performances by Grammy-winning bassist and composer Richard Bona and his Asante trio on Monday, June 23, and world-class guitarist and composer Bill Frisell with Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston on Tuesday, June 24.

Both events will be held at the Vancouver Playhouse and tickets are on sale now.

“Anyone who attended those Pat Metheny Group shows in the early 2000s should remember Richard Bona as the multi-instrumentalist virtuoso,” said Cole Schmidt, co-artistic director of Coastal Jazz, in a release. “Richard will lead his own trio this time, which will likely generate a fun night of infectious rhythms and stunning melodic interplay.”

Bill Frisell Trio

“I first saw Bill Frisell in Vancouver with his quartet in 1997,” shared Jeremy Page, co-artistic director of Coastal Jazz, in a statement. “There’s something very special and surreal as I now find myself booking Bill for the 40th anniversary of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival while standing on the shoulders of our founding artistic director Ken Pickering, who brought him to the festival in 1986.

“This performance promises to be a magical night where old memories will be reminisced, and new ones will be imagined.”

This year’s Vancouver International Jazz Festival will offer a variety of free and ticketed performances in June, including the free Downtown Jazz concert series outside the Vancouver Art Gallery and šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square as well as the lineup of events on Granville Island at Performance Works, Ocean Artworks, and the Revue Stage.

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40th Annual Vancouver Jazz Festival

When: June 20 to July 1, 2025
Time: Various times
Where: Various venues across Vancouver
Tickets: Free and ticketed events