This free festival will be filled with multiple stages of entertainment. Art in the Heart Downtown Art Show & Sale, Wine Down Tasting Experience, Generation Next Youth Talent Competition, Jazz Juniors educational activities, jazz exhibits and more will be there. Other festival highlights includes the Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition, ‘Round Midnight Jazz Jam, Jazz Talks, Sunday Jazz Brunches and other exciting activities.

This year the Jazz Festival offers free performances from renowned artists such as the Sonny Fortune Quartet, Basia and Tito Puente Jr. and his Orchestra.

The parade will be on Sunday, May 30 at 1:30 p.m. The parade in the streets led by JB Scott’s Swingin Allstars! Festival attendees are encouraged to bring their instruments and parasols to participate in this spirited celebration through downtown Jacksonville!

The City of Jacksonville is once again presenting Starry Nights which was well-known as one of Jacksonville’s most popular outdoor events for more than a decade, combining the wonderful sounds of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and an exciting variety of top entertainers. This event creates a festive downtown atmosphere in Metropolitan Park with the beautiful St. Johns River serving as the perfect backdrop.

Here are some of the concert dates and performers.

April 10 – Styx

Styx transformed from a suburban Chicago basement in the early 1970s to the virtual arena rock prototypes by the late 1970s and early 1980s, due to a fondness for big rockers and soaring power ballads.  Styx’s mainstream success began with “Lady.”  Most of their subsequent releases throughout the late 1970s earned at least platinum certification and spawned such hit singles and classic rock radio standards as “Come Sail Away,” “Renegade,” “Blue Collar Man,” and “Fooling Yourself.”

April 24 – Idina Menzel

Featuring Broadway powerhouse Idina Menzel, the Tony award-winning “Elphaba” from the international blockbuster “Wicked.”  With a diverse repertoire of classic pop, musical theater favorites (including hits from “Wicked” and “Rent”) as well as songs from her album “I Stand,” Idina Menzel demonstrates why she is one of the great vocal performers of our time.  Catch her this spring on the FOX television series “Glee!”

April 24th – Conductor Matthew Kraemer
Recognized for his “musical sensitivity” and “energized sense of interpretation”, conductor Matthew Kraemer begins his tenure as associate conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2009.  In this role he will appear on each of the orchestra’s major series, including subscription weeks, Pops, and Family concerts.  He will play a vital role in the BPO’s award winning education and community engagement programs, in addition to assisting Music Director JoAnn Falletta during her Kleinhans Hall weeks, recording sessions and on tour.  The 2009-2010 season will also mark his third and final year as associate conductor of the Virginia Symphony.  Upcoming season highlights include an all Mozart program and The Music Man with the BPO, Strauss’ Don Juan and Stravinsky’s Firebird with the VSO, and performances with Philippe Quint, Ben Folds, and Chris Botti.  He will also debut with the Jacksonville Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony orchestras in the spring of 2010.

Join the Black Eyed Peas on Tuesday, Feb 9 at 8:00pm for the concert of a lifetime. This will change the very way you experience music. The concert will be at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. Tickets are available now. This is going to be an amazing show that will completely change the way you experience music! Described as the ultimate Black Eyed Peas party experience, it also marks the first time that the group – will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and Fergie – is united for a North American headline tour since their 2006 Monkey Business world tour.

In support of their multi-platinum #1 album, The E.N.D, featuring the chart record-breaking consecutive #1 singles, “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” – The Black Eyed Peas will replicate the party vibe of a hot

The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas’ fifth studio album, is also their first original album since Monkey Business (released May 2005), certified RIAA triple platinum in the U.S., with worldwide sales of more than 9 million copies. Monkey Business generated Grammy® Awards over two consecutive years, for “Don’t Phunk with My Heart” and “My Humps.” The Peas’ first Grammy® Award came six years ago, for “Let’s Get It Started,” from their breakthrough album of 2003, Elephunk, which introduced Fergie into the lineup, and turned the group into international superstars with cumulative 25-times platinum sales in nearly a dozen countries around the world.

[AEG Live]

Star Wars: In Concert Worldwide concert tour plays October 29 at the
Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena

September 17, 2009 – Star Wars™: In Concert is a unique multi-media event featuring music from all six of John Williams’ epic Star Wars scores. As part of its worldwide tour, it will play October 29, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.

Tickets for the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena go on sale Friday, September 25 at 10 a.m. at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena box office, by phone at (800) 745-3000, and online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Narrated live by Anthony Daniels (the actor who portrayed C-3PO in all six films), the production features a full symphony orchestra and choir, accompanied by specially edited footage from the films displayed on a three-story-tall, high-definition LED super-screen – one of the largest ever put on tour. The live music and film elements are synchronized in order to create a full multi-media, one-of-kind Star Wars experience.

“We’ve taken the key themes from the music and cut together all the images that fit with each theme, so you can really get a sense of how the music played into the images,” said George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars Saga. “The whole soundtrack is a testament to John Williams’ creativity and his extraordinary ability to enhance the emotional aspects of the films.”

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Star Wars: In Concert – 2

“Creating the music for the Star Wars films has been an exciting and wonderful experience for me, and I therefore have derived particular pleasure in assembling a compendium of themes from all of the films to be presented in Star Wars in Concert,” said Williams. “The editors at Lucasfilm have created original film montages to accompany each of the musical selections, and in the process, I believe that a singular and unique Star Wars experience has been born.”

“This event has been crafted to present Star Wars from many points of view; for the first time, the full dramatic sweep of Williams’ iconic scores can be heard performed live in one evening,” said Another Planet Touring Producer Spencer Churchill.” “The show is a new way of experiencing the epic scope of the saga.”

Accompanying the concert is an exclusive exhibit of Star Wars costumes, props, artifacts, production artwork and specially created behind-the-scenes videos from the Lucasfilm Archives. Many of these pieces are leaving Skywalker Ranch for the first time. The exhibit features many classic fan favorite artifacts, as well as several new and never-before-seen items, including:

• Full costumes for Jedi Masters Kit Fisto and Plo Koon will be on display.

• For the first time ever, pages from John Williams’ original hand-written sheet music for Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace will be exhibited for the public.

• Also on display will be various never-before-seen props from the films, including blasters and helmets from Coruscant, Tatooine and other iconic Star Wars locations.

For more information, go to www.StarWarsInConcert.com.

Star Wars: In Concert is produced by Another Planet Touring in association with Lucasfilm Ltd. Performances will be conducted by Dirk Brossé and the production is directed and designed by Steve Cohen. Star Wars in Concert had its world premiere at the 02 Arena in London on April 10 and 11, 2009.

Tickets go on sale September 25, 2009 at 10 a.m.
at Ticketmaster, all Ticketmaster Outlets,
by phone(800) 745-3000, and online at www.ticketmaster.com.