The Savannah Music Festival kicks off this week. Here's a preview

Caption

Savannah Music Festival artistic director Ryan McMaken poses for a portrait outside the organization's offices in downtown Savannah.

Credit: Benjamin Payne / GPB News

The Savannah Music Festival kicks off on Thursday. This year's bill includes musicians from across the world playing in a variety of genres, including jazz, classical and roots. Ryan McMaken, artistic director of the Savannah Music Festival, spoke with GPB's Peter Biello.

Peter Biello: What stands out to you as really special about this year's festival?

Ryan McMaken: The entire lineup is really an expansion of what we've always done. We have nine venues across the historic district and sizes from 200 up to 1,200. But we've added an outdoor stage at Trustee's Garden this year, so we have four days of concerts outside with a very different kind of format — a family fun zone there and some other activities like that, food trucks and everything else, and multi-artist bills.

Peter Biello: Let me ask you about the recent history of the festival. The pandemic canceled the festival three years ago, and then it returned in a different form in 2021. Last year it existed, but it was still kind of different. Are we basically back to the way things were pre-pandemic this year?

Ryan McMaken: We're definitely back to the way things were and then some — and really pleased to be to that point with all the stuttered restarting that we all had to go through. So this is a really good thing. It's an interesting time of year just thinking back because three years ago around this same time — it was actually March 11 — we got called to the mayor's office along with the St. Patrick's Day Committee. And we were just, what? 10 days out from our festival and had hit our ticket goal and had tons of momentum — and there it went. So it's great to be in a different position this time around.

Peter Biello: The pandemic did prevent you to some extent from bringing musicians from other countries, but now looking at your lineup, it seems like the festival's really opening its arms wide to musicians from other countries. I wanted to ask you, Ryan, can you tell us a little bit about those coming from other countries?

Ryan McMaken: I'd love to. You know, this festival has always been one of the more prominent world music presenters in the — in the Southeast. And we were held up a good bit with getting international artists in. But now for opening weekend alone, we've got Sona Jobarteh, a wonderful West African Kora player, and Natu Camara on a co-bill.

Peter Biello: What about artists from the U.S.? Which artists are you excited about?

Ryan McMaken: There's a number of octogenarians in jazz playing alongside some emerging artists. But we were celebrating Kenny Barron's 80th birthday year, and he'll be playing with Dave Holland and Jonathan Blake. Really excited for that. A couple of other kind of elder statesmen would be Charles McPherson and Houston Person, who are playing on a co-bill. So some wonderful jazz. There's Etienne Charles, Harold López-Nussa, a Cuban piano player. Oh, and Cecile McLorin Salvant closing out the festival on April 8. But we also have a lot of American roots music, as always. So, Zydeco Dance Party with Jeffrey Broussard and the Creole Cowboys, the Infamous Stringdusters with Sierra Hull, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and then on opening weekend, we have two nights of Buddy Guy's farewell tour with different artists in support of him both nights.