25 Years of Athens Jazz: The city’s iconic festival celebrates its anniversary with an explosive lineup
20 bands from Greece and abroad showcase the jazz of our time, challenging rules and defying clichés! Read on for the full lineup.
25-31 May 2026
Free entrance
Athens Jazz marks 25 years as the leading jazz event in the city and returns with a special, anniversary edition that reflects on the past and looks ahead to the future. From 25 to 31 May 2026, Technopolis City of Athens will be filled with music, rhythm and energy, spreading jazz vibes to the whole city. For an entire week, you can enjoy live performances by the most innovative voices in modern jazz from Greece and abroad, choose from a packed slate of side events to complement your festival experience, and all this, as always, with free entry! More bold, more approachable and more curious than ever, the festival’s 25th edition reimagines the jazz of tomorrow, while honoring the legacy and passion of the people who built this institution and shaped its artistic identity through the years, making Athens Jazz a reference point for music lovers for over two decades.
At the 25th Athens Jazz, all musical combinations are possible and the grooves transcend borders and boundaries. A multifaceted lineup of 20 live acts from Greece and abroad will capture the pulse of modern jazz, exploring the more subversive, “street” side of the genre, without neglecting its deep, timeless roots. Leaving rules and conventions at the door, the lineup will unfold not as a simple string of live performances, but rather as a curated narrative that shines a light on the multiple interpretations of jazz today. If you love music that evolves beyond labels, music that moves and makes people move, music that brings people together in a communal experience, then this lineup is for you!
For its 25th anniversary, Athens Jazz has a big surprise for its loyal fans, dedicating its Greek day to the history of the festival itself with a tribute night specially curated to celebrate the memory and creativity of 25 years of Athens Jazz. Monday 25 May will be reserved for two Greek acts that will take us on a captivating sonic journey and set the tone for this year’s anniversary Athens Jazz edition. The festival will open with the Stavros Lantsias Quartet and their project “My Ennio Morricone”, a tribute to Giorgos Charonitis, a music journalist and Athens Jazz associate who defined the festival’s trajectory and had a deep connection with the work of the famous Italian composer. They will be followed on stage by the Greek Cooking Band, a jazz supergroup created especially for the festival’s 25th anniversary from musicians that have participated in the Greek day of previous editions. The band will be blending American jazz with authentic Greek folk, proving that Greek jazz is evolving in dialogue with its past while staying open, bold and modern.
On Tuesday 26 May, the night opens with an unconventional jazz trio that is wide awake again after a long period of hibernation. Lesni Zver from the Czech Republic conceive of nu-jazz not so much as a music connected with jazz in the historical sense of the word, but as common ground, a starting point that grants spontaneity and freedom. They will be followed by OTOOTO from Denmark, a band in perfect sync with the present even if their DNA carries strains of hypnagogic pop and electro avant-garde. Always experimenting in their electro-organic lab, their mission is to create a nu-jazz mirror where modern society can look at itself anew. The night closes with a jump into the most entrancing void of this year’s Athens Jazz. Where time expands, the world slows down and night reclaims its dominion, the nu-jazz quintet Conic Rose from Germany will be delivering mystical loops for a cinematic experience with no screen in sight. Is it Future Jazz? Is it Jazztronica? There’s no point trying to cram their music into a tidy little box, it’s a lost cause.
On Wednesday 27 May, Keelepeksjad from Estonia invite us to spend time with them in the playground of memory. Directly influenced by Estonian and international folk melodies, they reinterpret traditional music by infusing even well-known polka tunes with an electro jazz rock groove! Next on the stage come Elephant9 from Norway, a trio that dares to test the limits of fusion with loopy progressive elements. Filtering their collective musical tastes through the worlds of Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Soft Machine and Fela Kuti, they manage to produce their own brand of riveting, unbridled electric jazz rock. The night ends with Alabaster DePlume, an artist from the United Kingdom who will take the stage to bare his unique, unmediated truth and make it our own. A fragile, almost trembling, saxophone and a spoken word narration that doesn’t hide behind fancy arrangements provide the foundation for DePlume to build a sonic, cross-genre universe that balances between the interiority of spiritual jazz and the dark vulnerability of folk.
On Thursday 28 May, the Ermis Michael Trio from Cyprus, an elegant contemporary project that focuses on essence rather than excess, will present original compositions characterized by rich harmonic textures, fluid improvisations and a deep rhythmic interaction. Next up, it’s Kosmonauci from Poland, a band that rejects the burden of idioms and the limitations of genres, unfazed by the supposed imbalance between future jazz, drum ‘n’ bass and contemporary jazzy hip hop. Finally, Jazzbois from Hungary, the trio beloved by Gilles Peterson and aficionados of modern sound everywhere, will be taking the stage by storm with their cosmic beats and hip-hop wit. Narrow-minded purists beware! This band plays for the new jazzheads who are not intimidated by Herbie Hancock’s explosive grooves and love to imagine Thundercat jamming with J Dilla.
On Friday 29 May, the Luxembourg-based quintet LINQ will fill the stage with the raw, street energy of hip-hop, fused with some gritty punk rock attitude and the free improvisational spirit of modern jazz. After this electric crossover, it’s time for the Irene Reig Quartet from Spain. Delivering straight-up hard bop power, the Catalan saxophonist has proven that she has that special gift that allows her to hit the right emotional notes with every performance. To round out the night, the Gianluca Petrella Cosmic Renaissance project from Italy will take us on a journey into radical cosmic freedom and the unlimited potential of nu soulful jazz, inspired by the intergalactic, afrofuturistic legacy of Sun Ra. Get ready for expansive grooves that transcend boundaries from this group led by a brilliant Italian trombonist.
On Saturday 30 May, the most danceable day of Athens Jazz opens with Amphitrio, a special trio from Bucharest, Romania. Driven by artistic curiosity and respect to cultural diversity, they invite us to explore different narratives about what freedom sounds like. Next up, some pure nu-jazz born straight out of the millennial imagination! the BIG TUSK from Switzerland blurs the boundaries between improvised and electronic music with endless creativity, tight cohesion and organic honesty. The night closes with Elektro Guzzi, a live man-machine that makes mind-blowing analogue techno without laptops or loopers. With precision and cohesiveness that border on the artificial, group from Austria is here to challenge your preconceptions of jazz (and techno) with their unique sonic identity.
On Sunday 31 May, the last day of the festival will open with Rebecka Törnqvist from Sweden, who twists familiar pop forms into a fragile, lyrical sound that still manages to stay rough around the edges. From across the Atlantic Ocean, and specifically Brazil, comes the Esdras Nogueira Quintet to reimagine ancestral Brazilian sounds and combine them with tight Latin jazz, MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) and sassy afrobeat. Expect euphoric grooves that will get under your skin and stay there for days! The festival will close with the music of Lagon Nwar, where memories grounded in the land of Burkina Faso meet the flair of avant-garde, the dynamism of the Creole tradition and the weirdness of Euro-pop. The group from France will deliver a ritualistic live performance that transcends live albums and streaming links to become an event you can only experience first hand.
From 25 to 31 May 2026, the 25th anniversary edition of Athens Jazz will honor the festival’s past, celebrate its present and envision its future. After 25 years of consistent presence and creative evolution, one of the most enduring and vibrant cultural institutions in Athens is here once again to prove that its reputation as the city’s most iconic music event is entirely justified.
Stay tuned!
Athens Jazz 2026 | Lineup
Monday 25.05
21:00 | Stavros Lantsias Quartet “My Ennio Morricone” (GR)
22:30 | the Greek Cooking Band (GR)
Tuesday 26.05
21:00 | Lesni Zver (CZ)
22:00 | OTOOTO (DK)
23:00 | Conic Rose (DE)
Wednesday 27.05
21:00 | Keelepeksjad (EE)
22:00 | Elephant9 (NO)
23:00 | Alabaster DePlume (UK)
Thursday 28.05
21:00 | Ermis Michael Trio + 1 (CY)
22:00 | Kosmonauci (PL)
23:00 | Jazzbois (HU)
Friday 29.05
21:00 | LINQ (LU)
22:00 | Irene Reig Quartet (ES)
23:00 | Gianluca Petrella Cosmic Renaissance (IT)
Saturday 30.05
21:00 | Amphitrio (RO)
22:00 | the BIG TUSK (CH)
23:00 | Elektro Guzzi (AT)
Sunday 31.05
21:00 | Rebecka Törnqvist (SE)
22:00 | Esdras Nogueira Quintet (BR)
23:00 | Lagon Nwar (FR)
Find photographs for all live acts on the Athens Jazz 2026 lineup here.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/otwogosjazonp8utysfpn/h?rlkey=94vsc832b7amywfqu4c51fk3j&dl=0