The 9th Annual Emerging Artist Festival in Vermont | Nov. 6th-7th, 2026
Flutist Elena Pinderhughes Headlines
Vermont Jazz Center’s 9th Annual Emerging Artist Festival
[Brattleboro, VT] – The Emerging Artist Festival is one of the cornerstones of the Vermont Jazz Center’s programming. Now in its ninth year, the EAF takes place November 6 and 7th, 2026. The Headliner for this festival is Elena Pinderhughes, who will be joined by keyboardist/pianist Michael Aaberg, bassist Parker McCallister, and drummer Justin Tyson.
Fundamental to the VJC’s Emerging Artist Festival’s mission is participation by local student groups who will perform during Friday’s Gallery Walk at 118 Elliot Street Gallery from 5:00–8:00 PM on November 6th and at the Vermont Jazz Center during the day on Saturday, November 7th, from 11:00 AM–4:00 PM.
Youth Ensemble Performances:
Friday, November 6 at 118 Elliot St. Gallery starting at 5:00 PM
VJC Youth Ensembles (2 groups)
Academy at Charlotte
Northfield Mt. Hermon Honors Jazz Combo
Amherst College Vega Ensemble
Keene State College Jazz Combo
Pioneer Valley Performing Artist Jazz and Blues Ensemble
Saturday, November 7 at the Vermont Jazz Center starting at 11:00 AM
Northfield Mt. Hermon Jazz Ensemble
Emily Margaret and Archer Parks Duo
Amherst College Sirius Ensemble
UMass Amherst (2 groups)
BUHS Madrigals
BUHS Jazz Band
A livestreamed and in-person clinic with Elena Pinderhughes will take place from 4:00–5:00 PM, followed by the headliner concert at 7:30 PM.
All Friday and Saturday daytime activities for the EAF are free and open to the public, donations are appreciated. Pinderhughes’ concert at the VJC’s performance space is a ticketed event.
FEATURE ARTICLE:
The Vermont Jazz Center is thrilled to present Elena Pinderhughes on Saturday, November 7^th at 7:30 pm as part of their 9^th Emerging Artist Festival. She will be joined by keyboardist/pianist Michael Aaberg, bassist Parker McCallister, and drummer Justin Tyson. This quartet of young, heavy hitters demonstrates the breadth and depth of jazz’s new generation. All of the members of the band are skilled producers, their familiarity with the recording studio and genres like Afro-beat, modern R&B and hip-hop are the source-tools they use to explore new soundscapes. Nonetheless, their music continues to draw from the subtleties of the jazz language.
Pinderhughes is a flutist and vocalist who has strongly emerged onto the scene due to her undeniable talent and work ethic. Raised in Berkeley, California, Pinderhughes began training in classical flute and voice at age seven. She recorded her first album at age nine and was featured on the HBO special The Music in Me at eleven. As a youth she fell in love with jazz and R&B, focusing mainly on the tributaries of Black music including hip-hop and soul. She attended the Manhattan School of Music as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. While living in New York she made the best use of her time, networking, playing at jam sessions and joining creative forces with forward-seeking mentors like Ambrose Akinmusire and Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2016 Pinderhughes was named the number one Rising Star flutist in Downbeat Magazine. Her intentional sound and facility as an improviser has been demonstrated to listeners throughout the world in her many years of touring with trumpeter Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott), with whom she appeared at the Jazz Center in 2017 when she was 22 years-old. A decade later Pinderhughes’ presence as a major player is well-established and includes a discography of major import. She has toured or recorded with artists including Herbie Hancock, Moonchild, Robert Glasper, Yebba, Esperanza Spalding, Kenny Barron, Common and many others.
Now 31, Pinderhughes is at a phase in her life where she is coming into her own as a leader. Her brand-new album, “I hope you feel it too,” is an expression of a journey that she will tap into at the Jazz Center’s November 7^th concert. In a 2024 interview with Elmo Lovano she discussed her process of working on that album at that time. She also discussed the inherent distance she felt at being an itinerant musician and the trajectory of having been in the spotlight since she was eleven. Pinderhughes is now in the exciting process of demonstrating her vision as a new leader and distilling the essence of what music truly means to her: “Touring the world and performing on some of the biggest stages showed me something I couldn’t ignore: too often, jazz lives in spaces defined by preservation and distance, treated as something to admire rather than something to feel. I never believed that was its destiny. I wanted to make something that brought it back to where it started, back to feeling,
back to everyday life. The truest way I knew how to do that was through the instrument I’ve trusted my whole life to say what I can’t quite say in words. Every breath through my flute carries more truth than language usually lets me get to. This album holds heartbreak, tenderness, confidence, uncertainty, joy, sensuality, grief, and the complicated experience of growing into yourself.”
Along with Pinderhughes’ devotion to music is a life-long commitment to activism paired with a vivid self-exploration examining her position as a bi-racial woman in the African diaspora. In a 2016 Downbeat interview with Elena and her brother Samora (also a world-class musician) the two young prodigies discussed the fact that they have been activists their whole lives. Samora illuminated Elena’s impact on him saying “It’s important for me and essential for me to speak out. Elena has been very influential for me in terms of her insistence on speaking to her generation. She’s like, ‘I want to speak to all people, but the most important audience, for me, is my age and younger.’ Those are the people who are influencing the world.”
While visiting Ghana in 2022, Pinderhughes was interviewed by the Odana Network. In this revealing conversation she talks of how her academic professor parents instilled in her and her brother a love for the thread that connects them to activism and to the African continent. In that interview she says “My father is African-American and he gave me and my brother Yoruba middle names. He [Samora] is Abayomi and I’m Ayodele. He wanted us to be proud of our heritage that traces back to Africa. That’s really important to him and his mother, who traces her ancestry back to slavery… his whole family is very centered around making sure that the whole family and all the children and grandchildren honor our history and are very aware that we came from here [Africa].” Pinderhughes has also mentioned in interviews that a six-month family sabbatical to Cuba made a strong impact on her life. She embodies the values instilled upon her by her parents and is committed to working for human rights with a focus on education. In the Odana Network interview she explained how she was in the process of putting together a “program called Girl’s Empowerment Through the Arts for young girls of color… to use music as a way to support their self-confidence, help them express themselves, and really find a form of expression to deal with traumas and what’s going on in the world.”
Elena Pinderhughes and her band will demonstrate their commitment to youth involvement and the power of music in a 4:00 clinic at the Jazz Center on Saturday, November 7^th. The clinic is designed for the students who have attended the Emerging Artist Festival but the public is also welcome to this free program. The other performers/clinicians include keyboardist/pianist Michael Aaberg, bassist Parker McCallister, and drummer Justin Tyson.
Bay Area keyboardist Michael Louis Aaberg currently serves as R&B singer-songwriter Goapele’s music director. He is featured on three recording projects with Derrick Hodge including The Color of Noize, Ambrose Akinmusire’s Origami Harvest, and Lalah Hathaway’s Lalah Hathaway Live. He has released three albums as a leader.
Brooklyn bassist (both electric and acoustic) Parker McCallister has toured the world performing with Grammy Award-winning, Sweet Honey in the Rock as well as Jazzmeia Horn, Mathis Picard Trio, Rah Digga, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and many others. He attended New England Conservatory, has toured extensively throughout central and South America and was on the faculty at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM) in Chennai, India. As a producer McCallister has contributed to projects featured on Ropeadope Records and NPR’s Tiny Desk.
Drummer Justin Tyson’s was brought up in the church in Indiana. His credits include Grammy-award winning work with Robert Glasper, Lala Hathaway, Esperanza Spalding, Derrick Hodge, Ledisi, Maxwell, Terrace Martin, Chief Adjuah, Yebba, Milton Nacimento, and many others. He is currently the drummer with Jason Linder’s Now vs. Now.
About the VJC’s Emerging Artist Festival:
The Emerging Artist Festival (EAF) began as a way to intentionally feature young, emerging artists in the Jazz Center’s monthly concert programming. The EAF is now in its 9th year, but for five years before initiating the festival, the VJC interspersed emerging artists throughout their regular season.
VJC Emerging Artist Festivals:
(9^th) 2026 – Elena Pinderhughes (flute)
(8th) 2025 – Ulysses Owens and Generation Y (drums)
(7th) 2024 – Ekep Nkwelle (vocalist)
(6th) 2023 – Lakecia Benjamin (alto saxophone)
(5th) 2022 – Dan Wilson (guitar)
(4th) 2021 – Val Jeanty (DJ) -Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice
(3rd) 2020 – Samara Joy (vocalist)
(2nd) 2019 – Harold López-Nussa (piano)
(1st) 2018 – Arco Iris Sandoval (piano) and Sonic Asylum
Prior Emerging Artist Performers (before establishing the Festival)
2017 – Camille Thurman (vocals and saxophone) and Darryl Green (drums)
2016 – Caili O’Doherty (piano)
2015 – Sofia Rei (vocalist)
2014 – Sarah Charles and Integriti Reeves (vocalists)
2013 – Kavita Shah (vocalist)
The Vermont Jazz Center is excited to use the EAF to illustrate the great potential of our music moving forward. The only way that this is possible is through community support. This festival is sponsored in honor of the memory of two important women who were champions of the arts: Diana Bingham and Eve Baker. The families of each of these magnificent women contributed towards making this possible. Concert publicity is underwritten by The Commons and The Brattleboro Reformer. The VJC is also grateful to the Vermont Arts Council for their support and increased efforts in supporting arts organizations throughout the state.
Admission to the in-person Pinderhughes concert is offered on a sliding fee scale beginning at $25. Tickets can be purchased at www.vtjazz.org (http://www.vtjazz.org/) or by calling the VJC ticket hotline: 802-254-9088, ext. 1. The online streaming of this concert is offered by donation and are just a click away. Please give generously and support live music. Access to the online event can be found at www.vtjazz.org (http://www.vtjazz.org/)
Emerging Artist Schedule of Events: November 6th and 7th, 2026
* Friday, November 6th
+ 5:00 PM Student performers at 118 Gallery
* Saturday, November 7th
+ 11:00 AM – Student performers at Vermont Jazz Center
+ 4:00 PM Afternoon Clinic: Elena Pinderhughes will discuss her life in the music, technical approach, rehearsal strategies, and creative philosophy. Open to student musicians, educators, and the general public
+ 7:30 PM Evening Concert (ticketed event): Performance featuring Pinderhughes’ new original compositions with her touring ensemble.
Tickets and registration for both the clinic and the concert are available now. You can secure your seats and review the exact schedule directly on the Vermont Jazz Center Website (https://vtjazz.org/) .
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