Poland’s paradigm-shifting Jazztopad Festival returns to New York City for its tenth edition, June 17–21, 2026, marking a milestone for one of Europe’s most forward-thinking jazz festivals and its longest-running international satellite. From its founding home at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, Jazztopad has spent a decade building a New York presence defined by adventurous programming, world premieres, and an ethos of genuine cross-cultural exchange. The 2026 edition upholds that standard with a five-day run spanning three Manhattan venues and for the first time, the emergent downtown jazz club Close Up on the Lower East Side, a breeding ground for New York’s young visionaries.
Presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, this year’s edition is organized by NFM Director Olga Humeńczuk and Artistic Director Piotr Turkiewicz, who has shaped each New York edition around the idea that the best improvised music happens when artists from different traditions meet without a predetermined common language — and find one anyway.
The 2026 program brings together Polish and American musicians alongside an internationally assembled ensemble for a world premiere commission, while continuing the festival’s tradition of intimate house concerts alongside its higher-profile Lincoln Center engagements. The closing night at Close Up, a Lower East Side venue that opened in 2024 and has quickly become a gathering point for New York’s emerging jazz community, signals a deliberate expansion of the festival’s footprint into the city’s newer performance ecosystem.
A new transnational ensemble led by acclaimed Korean gayageum virtuoso DoYeon Kim brings together an extraordinary grouping of improvisers for a world premiere performance at the David Rubenstein Atrium. Kim — the first gayageum player admitted to the master’s programs at New England Conservatory and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, a Korean Grammy nominee (2018), Van Lier Fellow (2023), and Next Jazz Legacy awardee (2025) — released her debut album Wellspring on the TAO Forms label in May 2026. Her collaborators include Mark Dresser, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Webber, and Peter Evans. For this commission, she is joined by two deeply responsive collaborators: bassist John Hébert, born in New Orleans and based in New York since 1995, whose associations include long-term work with pianist Andrew Hill and Fred Hersch, and whose distinctive voice has been recognized in the DownBeat Critics Poll as Rising Star Acoustic Bassist across multiple years; and Japanese-American drummer and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, a native of Mito, Japan who studied at Berklee, lived four years in Colombia, and has been based in New York since 1991, performing across world music, jazz, contemporary classical, and experimental electronic contexts with artists including Anthony Braxton, Ray Barretto, Dhafer Youssef, and Lalo Schifrin. Polish saxophonist Matylda Gerber joins as special guest, bringing a searching tone and instinct for collective interplay to a set built on new compositions by Kim — pieces designed to move fluidly between written material and open improvisation, foregrounding each performer’s voice while building toward a shared listening.
The tenth edition of Jazztopad NYC closes at Close Up, the artist-driven jazz club at 154 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side that opened in 2024 and has rapidly emerged as a focal point for New York’s new generation of jazz performers and listeners. Founded with an explicit commitment to showcasing both the musician and the listener, Close Up represents a natural extension of Jazztopad’s own values — intimate, community-rooted, aesthetically open. The partnership marks the festival’s first appearance at the venue, extending its downtown presence and connecting its Polish-American programming mission with a room built around the same ethos of risk and discovery. Lineup to be announced.
PROGRAM
Wednesday, June 17 at 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM
Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center
10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY
Tomasz Dąbrowski NYC Quartet feat. Marta Sánchez, Luke Stewart & Kweku Sumbry – World Premiere
Performance lineup:
Tomasz Dąbrowski – trumpet
Marta Sánchez – piano
Kweku Sumbry – drums
Luke Stewart – double bass
Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 PM
David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
61 W 62nd St, New York, NY 10023
SutariNova with Special Guest Shahzad Ismaily – Premiere
Performance lineup:
SutariNova:
Basia Songin – vocal, electro-folk bass, Polish frame drum
Kasia Kapela – vocal, violin, Polish frame drum
Filip Zakrzewski – dub, FX, electronics
Shahzad Ismaily – double bass, guitar
Friday, June 19 at 6:00 PM
Maqam Studio New York, NY
House Concert with Festival Artists
A Jazztopad tradition: an intimate house concert setting offering festival artists and audiences an informal point of encounter outside the main-stage framework.
Saturday, June 20 at 7:30 PM
David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
61 W 62nd St, New York, NY 10023
DoYeon Kim, John Hébert, Satoshi Takeishi; Special guest: Matylda Gerber – World Premiere
Performance lineup:
DoYeon Kim – gayageum
Matylda Gerber – saxophone
John Hébert – double bass
Satoshi Takeishi – drums
Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Close Up
154 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002
Tomasz Dąbrowski with Henry Fraser, Jon Starks, Elias Stemeseder & Special Guest
Performance lineup:
Tomasz Dąbrowski – trumpet
Henry Fraser – bass
Jon Starks – drums/electronics
Elias Stemeseder – piano/synth
and Special Guest
Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Close Up
154 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002
Tomasz Dąbrowski with Henry Fraser, Jon Starks, Elias Stemeseder &Special Guests
Performance lineup:
Tomasz Dąbrowski – trumpet
Henry Fraser – bass
Jon Starks – drums/electronics
Elias Stemeseder – piano/synth
and Special Guests
Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 10:30 PM
Close Up
154 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002
Yvonne Rogers & Solomon Gottfried with Special Guests
Performance lineup:
Yvonne Rogers – piano
Solomon Gottfried – bass
and Special Guests
More information: Polish Cultural Institute New York