Community Calendar

Jason Carter has won three Grammy awards, including 2018’s “Best Bluegrass Album” with the Travelin’ McCourys, of which he is a founding member. And he’s taken home five IBMAs for “Fiddle Player of the Year,” a staggering number that isn’t quite so crazy once you realize just how many bluegrass greats have turned to Carter for collaboration. Michael Cleveland is the most awarded International Bluegrass Music Association Fiddle Player of the Year, with twelve wins to his name. He is a six-time winner of the IBMA Instrumental Performance of the Year and his band, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, has won Instrumental Group of the Year seven times.

Legendary violinist Midori joins the renowned musicians of Switzerland's Festival Strings Lucerne, one of the most distinguished chamber orchestras in Europe. Conductor Daniel Dodds will lead Midori and the ensemble on a musical journey, in a program featuring works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Ravel and Helena Winkelman.

Midori began her meteoric career as a violin prodigy and by age 12, she had left audiences around the globe standing and cheering, with The New York Times declaring, “she is an artist of inspiring gifts.” See the breathtaking Midori perform one of the most beautiful concertos ever composed, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, along with a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 and more.

Multifaceted American jazz pianist and composer Emmet Cohen is one of his generation's pivotal figures in music. A leading jazz pianist of his generation and a defining force in the evolution of the genre, Cohen is a virtuoso musician, producer, and bandleader, combining deep respect for jazz with a singular ability to create connection, community, and momentum in the modern era. Cohen has released 12 albums as a band leader and is the producer and creative force behind “Live From Emmet’s Place,” a landmark series of livestream performances reaching more than 100 million views worldwide and becoming a global cultural platform. A Mack Avenue recording artist, Cohen was named DownBeat Readers Poll Pianist of the Year (2025) and in 2023, received both Pianist of the Year and Livestream Producer of the Year honors from the Jazz Journalists Association.

Emmet is joined by lauded bassist Yasushi Nakamura and one of the most highly regarded jazz drummers on the scene today, Joe Farnsworth, to complete the trio.

YAMATO drummers return to East Lansing by popular demand after a nearly 10-year absence. Their acclaimed performances of Japanese Taiko drumming and music have captivated audiences of millions in 53 countries around the world. The drummers challenge and push to their absolute limits in a staggering display of physical strength as they use their entire bodies to produce thunderous music. YAMATO will leave audiences exhilarated by this visually spectacular, high-energy, and explosive show.

“A sheer joy.” —Metro London

“Simply breathtaking” —Daily Telegraph

“Pure energy meets spiritual high” —The Scotsman

Composer, violinist, and vocalist Layale Chaker, and acclaimed harpist Maeve Gilchrist come together to draw from the musical vocabularies of their respective lineages—Levantine and Celtic—imagining the threads that quietly stitch together inherited worlds, the whispers of old tales passed down by grandmothers, the shadowed weight of mythologies and superstitions, scattered across time and distance.

Their collaboration, "Smoke Veins," traces melodic and rhythmic contours shaped by centuries of oral tradition: the echoes of old stories, mythologies, and superstitions carried across time and distance.