Donny McCaslin closed the Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival with the project "Lullaby for the Lost"
The fourth edition of the Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival ended on Saturday, August 29, 2026, with a concert by American saxophonist Donny McCaslin in the garden of the Grand Hotel on the island of Lopud. According to an announcement by the Ponta Lopud organizers, the closing evening was dedicated to his project Lullaby for the Lost, a contemporary fusion of jazz, rock, electronics and improvisation, followed by the festival's final jam session. McCaslin was joined on stage by keyboardist Jason Lindner, bassist Jonathan Maron, drummer Antonio Sánchez and vocalist Thana Alexa, bringing together for the closing concert musicians whose careers span jazz, experimental music, rock and film music. Over three days, from August 27 to 29, the festival combined evening concerts with an intensive mentoring program involving 13 young professional musicians from 11 countries in Europe and North and South America. The organizers state that the program included three concerts in the garden of the Grand Hotel, eight masterclasses and discussions at the Rector's Palace, and jam sessions in which participants performed together with their mentors.
The closing evening marked by McCaslin's new sound
Donny McCaslin arrived in Lopud with a project that continues the direction of his album Lullaby for the Lost, released on September 26, 2025, by Edition Records. The label describes the album as nine compositions strongly rooted in guitar-driven energy and rock aesthetics, but shaped through the improvisational language of contemporary jazz. In the festival announcement and final report, the organizers emphasized that in this material McCaslin often places the saxophone in the role that a lead vocalist would occupy in a rock band, while influences mentioned range from Neil Young to Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine. Such an approach logically continues McCaslin's long-standing practice of crossing the boundaries between acoustic jazz, electronic textures and a more forceful rhythmic architecture. In Lopud, the material was presented in a special live lineup, different from the album's complete studio ensemble, but made up of musicians directly connected to important phases of McCaslin's work.
Jason Lindner, who played keyboards in Lopud, is one of McCaslin's long-time collaborators and, like him, took part in David Bowie's final studio album Blackstar. The official Grammy website lists McCaslin as a member of the ensemble that played on Bowie's album, and it was precisely that collaboration that brought his work to an audience far beyond the jazz scene. Bassist Jonathan Maron, co-founder of the New York band Groove Collective, also enters McCaslin's discography through material from the album Lullaby for the Lost, on which he participated in several compositions. On drums in Lopud was Antonio Sánchez, a four-time Grammy winner, long-time collaborator of Pat Metheny and composer of the music for the film Birdman, which the organizer also specifically highlighted in the program for the final day. The vocal dimension of the concert was added by Thana Alexa, the festival's co-founder and artistic director, who also had mentoring and organizational roles throughout all three days.
From "Blackstar" to an independent artistic identity
McCaslin's connection with David Bowie is an important part of the context of the closing performance, but his work in recent years shows that this connection cannot be reduced to a single discographic episode. On Blackstar, released in 2016, Bowie included in his final studio phase a core group of New York jazz musicians, among them McCaslin and Lindner. That collaboration further opened up space for a sound in which complex improvisation is combined with rock production, electronic processing and precisely crafted songs. McCaslin continued to develop that territory on his own releases, and Lullaby for the Lost represents his 14th album as a bandleader, according to Edition Records. The label states that the album was created with an emphasis on the energy of a live band and on transforming improvised moments into structured, progressive compositions.
The album contains nine tracks and runs for approximately 50 minutes, and Edition Records lists Jason Lindner, Ben Monder, Tim Lefebvre, Zach Danziger, Jonathan Maron, Nate Wood, Ryan Dahle and Mark Guiliana among its key collaborators. The material was recorded in December 2024 and early 2025, with production credited to Tim Lefebvre, alongside additional production and mixing contributions from several collaborators. In that context, the Lopud performance was not merely a festival presentation of a current album, but a live reinterpretation of the material in a lineup adapted to the specific space and moment. The festival presented McCaslin's project as one of three different perspectives on contemporary jazz, with an emphasis on intersections with rock, electronics and free improvisation. In this way, the closing evening also rounded off the programming idea of the entire edition: to present jazz as an open language that is constantly changing through collaboration, technology, personal musical roots and the experience of playing together.
Three evenings, three different views of contemporary jazz
The evening program of the fourth Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival was conceived around three distinctly profiled original projects. The first evening, August 27, was opened by Chilean guitarist, vocalist and composer Camila Meza with the project Portal, in which, according to the festival report, she connects contemporary jazz, Latin American folklore and electronic textures. Meza was joined by Gabriel Chakarji on piano and synthesizers, Alejandra Sofia on backing vocals and Elé Howell on drums. The organizers state that the concert format left considerable room for improvisation and interaction among the band members, which corresponded with the festival's mentoring concept. The concert was followed by a jam session led by Thana Alexa, Jason Lindner and Jonathan Maron, with the participants joining the mentors in front of an audience for the first time at this year's edition.
On the second day, August 28, pianist and vocalist Rachel Eckroth and drummer John Hadfield performed in the garden of the Grand Hotel with the project Speaking in Tongues. According to the festival program, their duo was formed in 2023 and is based on improvisation as the main link between composed structures and spontaneous musical response. In their announcement, the organizers emphasized that the compositions were shaped in a way that leaves the performers enough space for an unfiltered development of ideas in the moment of performance. That evening also ended with a jam session which, according to the festival report, continued past midnight. Combined with McCaslin's closing concert, the three evenings demonstrated the broad range of contemporary jazz: from the fusion of Latin American traditions and electronics, through chamber-like improvisational dialogue, to electrified jazz-rock.
The mentoring program as the central part of the festival
Although the evening concerts were the most publicly visible part of the Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival, the organizers describe the mentoring program as its core. This year's 13 participants were selected through an international open call and came from 11 countries in Europe, North America and South America. They included vocalists, pianists, guitarists, saxophonists, bassists and drummers, meaning that the group was already configured through its instrumentation to function as several different ensembles. Ponta Lopud states that since the festival's first edition in 2023, more than 40 young professional musicians from different parts of the world have passed through the mentoring program. The idea of the program was not to separate education from performance, but to allow what was discussed and worked on during the day to be tested in a public performance that very same evening.
The main mentor of the fourth edition was Jamey Haddad, a percussionist who has collaborated with Paul Simon for more than 25 years and is a member of the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame, according to information published by the festival. The mentoring team included Camila Meza, Donny McCaslin, Rachel Eckroth, John Hadfield, Antonio Sánchez, Jason Lindner, Jonathan Maron, Alejandra Sofia, Gabriel Chakarji, Elé Howell and Thana Alexa. The workshop program went beyond instrumental technique and covered professional sustainability, the creative process, working with rhythm, polyrhythm, improvisation and musical storytelling. In this way, the festival placed mentoring work within the broader framework of a musician's professional life, including issues of creative energy, identity, long-term development and functioning under the uncertain conditions of freelance artistic work. This breadth of content distinguishes the format from a conventional series of concerts and brings it closer to a residency program in which performers and participants meet in multiple roles.
Four workshops marked the festival's final day
Saturday, August 29, was, according to the organizers, the most programmatically intensive day, with four masterclasses at the Rector's Palace before the closing concert. The first was led by Camila Meza, Gabriel Chakarji and Elé Howell and dealt with the relationship between personal and musical roots and the creative process. Through structured exercises, participants explored how traditional music, personal influences and life experiences can become material for composition, and how improvisation can be used as a writing tool rather than merely as a performance technique. This was followed by John Hadfield's workshop dedicated to polyrhythm and improvisation, during which, according to the festival report, voice, clapping and walking were used to make complex metric relationships more accessible through the physical experience of rhythm. The focus then shifted to the possibilities of applying such patterns in improvisation and the development of musical motifs.
Antonio Sánchez led the workshop Storytelling Through Music, dedicated to the ways in which motif, space, dynamics and intention can help a performer shape a musical thought more clearly. The organizers state that the approach was intended for musicians regardless of instrument or style, with the idea that technical virtuosity acquires meaning only when it serves a recognizable story and expression. The final workshop, Master Jamey Haddad's Listening Room, was based by Haddad on recordings that had strongly influenced his musical development. The discussion focused on textures, form, and harmonic and rhythmic concepts from Brazilian, South Indian and African musical traditions. In a statement shared by the festival, Haddad emphasized listening to others as one of the key values of jazz, linking a musician's ability to respond to what they hear with the much broader idea of mutual understanding.
Jam sessions connected the workshops and the stage
One of the distinctive features of the program was the jam sessions following the evening concerts, where young participants could play with the mentors outside a strictly predetermined concert repertoire. The organizers used this format as a practical continuation of the daytime workshops, allowing themes such as listening, rhythm, dynamics and the spontaneous shaping of music to be tested immediately in front of an audience. The final jam session after McCaslin's concert was the last opportunity for this year's participants and mentors to perform together within the festival framework. Afterward, according to Ponta Lopud's final report, the evening was concluded by DJ sets from Jason Lindner and Tome Ricov. Such a sequence - workshop, concert, collective improvisation - shows that the festival built its identity not only on the names of well-known performers but also on the direct transfer of experience between different generations of musicians.
At the end of the festival, artistic director Thana Alexa thanked the artists, mentors, participants, partners and hosts on the island, emphasizing in particular the openness with which the musicians shared their knowledge and creativity. In her statement, published by Ponta Lopud, special recognition was given to the Jazz Master, the mentoring team and the participants who took part in the workshops and jam sessions. This message fits the model of an event that seeks to reduce the distance between established international performers and musicians who are only beginning to build professional careers. For the audience, the result was a three-day program in which the concerts could be followed as the final, public phase of a process that began during the day through conversation, practice and experimentation. For the participants, meanwhile, the festival offered an opportunity for knowledge not to remain at the theoretical level, but to be applied immediately in a real performance environment.
Lopud as a venue for cultural residencies and summer programs
The Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival is part of the broader Ponta Lopud Creative Platform, which organized three summer cultural programs on the island in 2026 dedicated to film, music and literature. According to the platform's official information, the Ponta Lopud Film Festival took place from June 25 to 28, the jazz festival from August 27 to 29, while the Ponta Lopud Book Bridge was announced for September 17 to 19. In this way, the small Adriatic island near Dubrovnik becomes a venue during the summer season for several culturally diverse yet residency- and mentorship-oriented gatherings. The jazz edition relies in particular on a more intimate format in which the same group of artists shares workshops, concerts and informal musical encounters over several days. Such an environment suits a program that is based not only on a large stage but on continuous exchange among mentors, participants and audiences.
The conclusion of McCaslin's concert and the final jam session marked the end of the festival's fourth edition, but also confirmed the direction Ponta Lopud has been developing since 2023: an international program in which education and public performance are interconnected. This year's combination of three aesthetically different concert projects demonstrated just how broadly the concept of jazz can be interpreted today, from acoustic and chamber approaches to electronics, Latin American influences and rock. At the same time, eight workshops made it possible to see the professional process behind the evening performances - the way musicians develop ideas, listen to others, build rhythm, shape a story and sustain a career. McCaslin's Lullaby for the Lost therefore summed up that concept well as the closing project: music rooted in jazz but open to a powerful electric sound, contemporary production and the experience of collective improvisation. The platform's next program on Lopud will be the Ponta Lopud Book Bridge from September 17 to 19, 2026, continuing this year's summer cultural cycle with a literary program.
Sources:
- Ponta Lopud - final report on the fourth Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival, Donny McCaslin's concert, workshops and participants (link)
- Ponta Lopud - official program of the 2026 Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival and information on concerts and mentors (link)
- Ponta Lopud - report on the festival opening and Camila Meza's concert (link)
- Ponta Lopud - report on the second festival day and the project "Speaking in Tongues" (link)
- Ponta Lopud - presentation of 13 participants from 11 countries and the composition of the mentoring program (link)
- Edition Records - official information about the album "Lullaby for the Lost", its release date, tracks and collaborators (link)
- Grammy - confirmation of McCaslin's participation in the band on David Bowie's album "Blackstar" (link)