The 2018 Reno Jazz Festival will feature performances by drummer Dafnis Prieto and multi-talented musician and composer Peter Apfelbaum during the three-day jazz festival.

In addition to evening concerts by guest artists, the Reno Jazz Festival offers daytime competitions, workshops and clinics by dozens of professional jazz artists and adjudicators for more than 9,000 young jazz musicians. The three-day festival culminates in a festival showcase concert and awards ceremony to honor the best and brightest young standouts.

2018 Reno Jazz Festival line-up

April 26

Co-sponsored with the Performing Arts Series, Peter Apfelbaum and The Collective will open the Reno Jazz Festival on Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the University of Nevada, Reno Nightingale Concert Hall. Berkeley-born and based in New York City since 1998, saxophonist/pianist/drummer and composer Apfelbaum is best known as the leader of the world music big band, The Hieroglyphics Ensemble, which he formed while still in high school in 1977. The ensemble, which attracted international attention for its unique fusing of elements of world music with the aesthetics of the jazz avant-garde, received a Grammy nomination in 1991 for the album "Signs of Life" (Antilles). It helped launch the careers of fellow Berkeleyans Joshua Redman, Benny Green, Craig Handy and Steven Bernstein. An influential figure in new jazz for more than three decades, he has worked with some of the leading figures in contemporary music, including the late Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Harry Belafonte, Omar Sosa, Bill Laswell and Phish. He has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and the National Swedish Radio Orchestra. In 2013, he formed Sparkler, an electronica-based sextet, which released its debut EP on MOD Technologies in 2015. His newest recording, an album of solo piano pieces entitled "Song of The Tree of Destiny," will be released this year on the Loove Arts label. He has played with Dafnis Prieto since 1999 and is a member of Prieto's Sextet and Si o Si Quartet. CMJ New Music Report has called Apfelbaum "a visionary, galvanic composer and player like few others of his time."

Tickets: Adult (18-61), $29; senior (62 or older), $24; University faculty and staff, $24; youth/student (3-17), $15; University student, $5 (tickets must be purchased in person at the Lawlor Events Center Ticket Office)

April 27

The Reno Jazz Festival is hosting the Dafnis Prieto Sextet on Friday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m. at Lawlor Events Center. Throughout the past two decades, a wave of astonishing musicians from Latin America has surged across the New York jazz scene providing a torrent of energy. Cuban-born drummer Prieto exemplifies this wide-open generation as a conservatory-trained artist steeped in Afro-Cuban folkloric forms, the European classical tradition and post-bop jazz improvisation. The recipient of 2011 MacArthur Genius Fellowship, Prieto is an increasingly commanding composer whose most recent album "Triangles and Circles" showcases his dazzling Sextet, a band comprised of world-class instrumentalists that he has led since 2007. The current edition features saxophonists Peter Apfelbaum and Roman Filiu, trumpeter and University of Nevada, Reno Assistant Professor Ralph Alessi, Pianist Alex Brown, and Bassist Ricky Rodriguez. All brilliant soloists, they are also exemplary team players who, like Prieto, are experts at crafting musical narrative from Pan-American source material. The sextet will be preceded with an opening act by the University Jazz Ensemble, the "Free Radicals."

Tickets: General admission, $29; festival participants, senior, faculty and For the Love of Jazz members, $24; youth/student (3-17), $15

April 28

The Reno Jazz Festival concludes on Saturday, April 28 at 6:30 p.m. April 28 with the Showcase and Awards Ceremony in Lawlor Events Center.

Tickets: General admission, $18; festival participants, senior, faculty and For the Love of Jazz members, $15; youth/student (3-17), $11

Considered one of the best of its kind in the world and lauded by the San Francisco Chronicle as "showcasing music's future," the Reno Jazz Festival has been hosting jazz superstars and the finest jazz students, educators and professional musicians in the nation. Since 1962, the festival has grown considerably in size and stature and is becoming one of the largest and finest events of its kind in the world.

Tickets and more information

Jazz Fan Festival Pass is good for all events and concerts, including premier Lawlor seating. Three-day passes are $80 for general admission and $70 for festival participants, senior, faculty and For the Love of Jazz members.
Tickets are available online, by phone at 775-784-4444 (convenience fees for online and phone purchases), or in person at either the Lawlor Events Center Ticket Office (open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday at 1550 N. Virginia St, Reno, lower level) or at the Church Fine Arts Box Office beginning one hour prior to performances. Orders received too late for mailing will be held at the box office for pick-up.

The Lawlor Box Office will be open its regular hours April 26 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. but extended on April 27 from 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. and limited on April 28 from 5:30-8:30 p.m. Children younger than two are admitted free. The child will need to sit on adult's lap unless there is space available. University faculty, staff and students must show University ID card.

The Performing Arts Series and the Reno Jazz Festival are put on by the School of the Arts. The University's School of the Arts embraces its role as a vibrant center for arts and culture in northern Nevada. Its degree programs provide a strong foundation in a range of artistic disciplines, enabling students to contribute as artists, educators and scholars at the local level and beyond. The School, as part of the College of Liberal Arts, also supports and encourages research, innovation, and the artistic endeavors of its faculty. Finally, the school encourages broad campus and community participation in the arts through its numerous performances, lectures, shows, core courses and outreach activities that explore diverse cultures and encourage lifelong learning.

The University of Nevada, Reno Jazz Festival and Performing Arts Series receive financial support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency; the City of Reno; the Benna Family; the United States Marine Corps, Recruiting Station Sacramento; the University of Nevada, Reno; the University of Nevada, Reno Graduate Student Association; and The Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno. Hotel rooms are provided by Eldorado Resorts, and marketing support provided by CLM Design. The Steinway Piano Gallery of Reno supplies pianos for the festival.