Melbourne International Jazz Festival drops its first 2026 lineup and it's stacked
Jazz lovers, brace yourselves. Melbourne International Jazz Festival has just announced five of its headline acts for 2026, and the lineup is wild in the best way.
Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF) will run from 16–25 October, spanning venues across the city from Hamer Hall to the relatively intimate Jazz Lab.
Leading the charge is Dee Dee Bridgewater, a three-time GRAMMY Award winner and one of the most celebrated vocalists in modern jazz history, returning to Melbourne for the first time in over a decade.
Dee Dee Bridgewater will be joined at Hamer Hall by Guggenheim Fellow pianist and composer Helen Sung for a special duet performance weaving through material from the Great American Songbook alongside compositions by Duke Ellington, Stephen Sondheim, Michel Legrand and Paul Simon. Bridgewater’s career spans four decades and includes collaborations with Max Roach, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as a Tony Award for her stage work.
Melbourne International Jazz Festival
- Kris Davis Trio – The Jazz Lab, 19–20 October
- The Bad Plus – Melbourne Recital Centre, 21 October
- aja monet – Max Watts, 22 October
- Tigran Hamasyan – Melbourne Recital Centre, 23 October
- Dee Dee Bridgewater & Helen Sung – Hamer Hall, 24 October
- Tickets here
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
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Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan also returns to MIJF, bringing his latest work Manifeste, a record that draws on jazz, progressive rock and Armenian folk traditions. Hamasyan is regarded as one of the most inventive pianists working today, with performances known for their technical depth and emotional range.
Also on the bill is pioneering jazz collective The Bad Plus, who are heading out on a global farewell tour and will make their final Australian appearance at Melbourne Recital Centre. The group have spent more than two decades reshaping jazz through adventurous experimentation, with founding members Reid Anderson and Dave King now joined by guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed. Their Melbourne show marks the end of a 26-year run.
Brooklyn-based surrealist blues poet aja monet makes her Melbourne debut at Max Watts, performing material from her latest album the color of rain. monet first made a name for herself winning the Nuyorican Poets Café Grand Slam at 19 and has since built a reputation as a bandleader and collaborator operating at the intersection of jazz, soul and spoken word, with appearances at Newport, Montréal, North Sea and the Barbican Centre, where she served as London Jazz Festival’s 2025 Artist in Residence.
Rounding out the first announcement is GRAMMY-winning pianist and composer Kris Davis, who brings her trio featuring bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake for a four-show residency at The Jazz Lab. Davis has been named DownBeat Pianist of the Year in 2020, 2022 and 2025, and has worked alongside the likes of Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Holland and Esperanza Spalding.
Tickets go at 11am on 21 May, with more artists to be announced in the lead-up to the festival.
For more information, head here.
