The first week of August brings an avalanche of music festivals and concert series to Door County, with the Peninsula’s two long-running classical music festivals joined by the return of a jazz festival and a run of 10 concerts featuring three superstar songwriters.
Here’s a quick look at these four music fests.
Aug. 2-8: Door County Jazz Festival
The music and lives of three giants of the jazz world and beyond are celebrated as the Door County Jazz Festival returns for its second edition of concerts and performances throughout the Peninsula in the first week of August.
Concerts take place on six straight days during the festival, some coinciding with concerts in the park series in Door County communities. The series opens with a free showing of a documentary of special interest to music buffs and culminates in a closing concert Aug. 8 at Martin Park in Sturgeon Bay.
The festival was founded and is produced by Staci Griesbach, a Hortonville native, University of Wisconsin graduate and former member of the Wisconsin Singers now living in and working out of the Los Angeles area as a jazz vocalist and songwriter, as well as serving as arts commissioner for the city of Santa Monica, California.
The inaugural festival in 2025 honored the centennial birthdays that year of legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, vocalist June Christy and vibraphonist/percussionist and Latin jazz leader Cal Tjader, and the idea continues with the 2026 festival celebrating the 100th birthdays of trumpeter Miles Davis, saxophonist John Coltrane and singer Tony Bennett.
Part of the centennial celebration for Davis is a free showing of “Birth of the Cool,” the PBS-produced 2019 film documentary on his life and impact on music, not just the various styles of jazz he embraced but also his later forays into fusion, rock and hip-hop. The movie, named after Davis’ groundbreaking 1957 album that positioned him as the father and leader of cool jazz, won two Emmy Awards and features never-seen-before photos, outtakes and footage of other jazz greats like Charlie Parker, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
The festival is presented by the Door County Jazz Foundation, whose mission is creating a cultural arts movement in Door County through jazz performance, education and community programming. To that end, the foundation is collaborating with Sunrise on Main Boutique in Egg Harbor, a curated resale shop featuring like-new and new women’s apparel and accessories, with proceeds from donated merchandise going to the foundation.
The festival also features collaborations with music education institutions across the state: the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Whitewater, the Milwaukee Jazz Institute and the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music.
For more information, visit doorcountyjazzfestival.com or follow @doorcountyjazzfestival on social media for updates throughout the week.
The 2026 Door County Jazz Festival schedule:
Aug. 3-14: Washington Island Music Festival
This 35th edition of Washington Island’s long-running annual festival features four classical music concerts by professional musicians from across the Midwest and the country, a four-day children’s music camp and a children’s concert, and music appreciation sessions.
The classical concerts are “Musical Progressions,” Aug. 3, with music by Tomaso Albinoni, Jean-Marie Leclair, Farrenc, Dvorak (his “American” quartet) and Wisconsin-based composer Christian Ellenwood; “Songs of the Heart,” Aug. 6, featuring soprano Laura Strickling and pieces by Grazyna Bacewicz, Eric Whitacre, Albert Roussel, Bernstein and Beethoven; “Travels Through Europe,” Aug. 9, with music by Gyorgy Ligeti, Schubert and Tchaikovsky; and “Thank You for Everything,” Aug. 14, with music by Daruis Milhaud, Brahms, Enrique Granados and Eric Ewazen.
All start at 7 p.m. in the Trueblood Performing Arts Center except the Aug. 9 program at 4:30 p.m. Pheasant Ridge Farm, 1592 Michigan Road. Pre-concert talks with some of the musicians start 15 minutes before each of these concerts. Tickets are $25.
There also are three “Musicians in the Barn” events with festival musicians giving demonstrations and talking about music, with coffee and treats served, in the Red Barn. These sessions are at 10 a.m. Aug. 5, 7 and 13 and freewill donations are appreciated. Music buffs also can attend an open rehearsal for the Aug. 9 program at 10 a.m. Aug. 8 in the Trueblood PAC.
Pop-up concerts will be held Aug. 11, at 10 a.m. in the pavilion at Schoolhouse Beach, 11:30 a.m. at Aznoe Road Farm and 1 p.m. at the Art and Nature Center, 1799 Main Road. Also, an “Under the Big Top” concert featuring Island musicians is at 7 p.m. Aug. 12 at the Trueblood.
The Concert for Kids of All Ages this year is titled “A Musical Journey Through Color,” featuring selections from Mussgorky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and singers and other participants from the kids’ music camp joining festival musicians. It starts at 11 a.m. Aug. 12 at the Trueblood. Admission is free but donations are appreciated.
For more on the festival, visit washingtonislandmusicfestival.com or facebook.com/wimusicfestival. For information on the Washington Island Ferry Line (which, unless you’re flying, you need to take to get to and from the Island), call 920-847-2546 or visit wisferry.com.
Aug. 4-22: Peninsula Music Festival, Fish Creek
Three Grammy Award winners, a legendary violin and returning favorites are among the highlights of Peninsula Music Festival’s 2026 symphony season, its 74th.
The three-week, nine-concert 2026 season from Aug. 4 to 22 at Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek brings together musicians from all over the world together to form the fully professional PMF Orchestra under the baton of Rune Bergmann, the native of Norway now in his fourth full season as PMF music director.
As for those highlights, coming back to PMF as guest soloists are violinist James Ehnes, a two-time Grammy winner who last appeared with PMF in 2017, and pianist Stewart Goodyear, who has made a number of appearances with the orchestra over the past 20 or so years.
Ehnes, who plays the first two concerts of the season, is sharing a bit of the spotlight with his instrument. He’ll play his Marsick Stradivarius, a violin built by the legendary violin maker Antonio Stradivari in 1715 and so noteworthy it has its own Wikipedia listing.
Ehnes will be featured on a violin concerto by Samuel Barber in the opening night “American Masterworks” concert Aug. 4 and a Mozart concerto for the Aug. 6 “String Serenades” program, but for the latter concert he’ll also take on a rare play-lead role as he’ll simultaneously conduct the orchestra from his violin while playing the concerto, a tradition that dates back to Mozart’s time. The opening night program also includes a suite of movie tunes by Leonard Bernstein, a modern work by Joan Tower and the PMF tradition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” while the Aug. 6 concert includes string serenades by Elgar and Dvorak.
Mozart pops up again when Goodyear returns by popular demand to PMF to play the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 23 during the “An Evening with Mozart” program Aug. 13. This concert includes the composer’s Overture to his famous opera “The Magic Flute” and Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major.
Other Grammy winners coming to PMF this August are pianist Michelle Cann and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung.
Cann, a two-time Grammy winner, is the guest soloist on Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor for the Aug. 18 program, “The Viennese Legacy,” which also has Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major.
DeYoung will join the PMF Orchestra, the Apollo Women’s Chorus of Chicago and the Appleton Boychoir as soloist on Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 3, a six-movement piece voted one of the 10 best symphonies of all time in a survey of conductors by BBC Music Magazine, for the closing concert of the festival on Aug. 22.
Highlights from the rest of the season include the appearance of two young guest conductors who are considered rising stars in the classical music world to lead the orchestra as part of PMF’s Karen Smuda Emerging Conductor Program. Ezra Calvino and Thomas Nettle, both from the Yale University School of Music, will share the podium for the Aug. 20 concert, “Revolution and Romance,” with symphonies by Mendelssohn, Haydn and Beethoven. It’s a return also for Calvino, who led the PMF Orchestra in one concert in 2025 as part of the Smuda program.
This year’s PMF pops concert Aug. 11 brings in another guest conductor, Bob Bernhardt, to lead a program of movie tunes composed by the legendary John Williams that includes a suite from the first three “Harry Potter” movies. Bernhardt is considered one of the premier pops conductors in America, currently in his 29th season as principal pops conductor for the Louisville (Kentucky) Orchestra. He’s guest-conducted numerous orchestras across North America, including frequent appearances with the Boston Pops, where Williams as its director first invited Bernhardt to take the baton in 1992.
PMF Orchestra members also get their chances to shine as soloists. The Aug. 8 program, “Scandinavian Sounds,” features PMF Orchestra principal trumpet Mark Hughes on Lars-Erik Larsson’s Trumpet Concerto and English horn player Leanna Renfro on Sibelius’ “The Swan of Tuonela,” with Svendsen’s “Norwegian Artists’ Carnival” and Nielsen’s “Four Temperaments” symphony also on the bill.
The Aug. 15 program of works by Italian composers features five PMF Orchestra members as soloists. Principal bassoonist Michael Kroth is playing Vivaldi’s Bassoon Concerto and joins flutist Helen Blackburn and oboist Eric Olson as soloists in a Vivaldi concerto, and horn players Erich Peterson and Leslie Norton on a two-horn concerto by Georg Philipp Telemann. Works by Verdi and Respighi round out the program.
Peninsula Music Festival concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at Door Community Auditorium, 3926 State 42, Fish Creek. Tickets are $39 to $83 for adults, $10 students and children, and subscription packages are available; available tickets also will be sold at DCA starting at 6:30 p.m. before each concert. For tickets or more information, visit the PMF office, 10431 N. Water St. (State 42), Ephraim; call 920-854-4060; or visit musicfestival.com.
The Peninsula Music Festival 2026 season:
Aug. 4-12: Buckets Band concerts, Egg Harbor
There’s a new sound coming in 2026 to the annual, now expanded, series of “Buckets of __” concerts in Door County.
The sextet of Door County musicians who first came together in 2011 for the “Buckets of Rain” Bob Dylan tribute concerts, and sold out most of them, added concerts featuring the songs of also-legendary songwriter John Prine in 2024 and ’25, and sold almost all of those out as well.
For 2026, the songs of Dylan and Prine are back and being joined by “Buckets of Brandi,” new concerts featuring the music of current Americana superstar and 11-time Grammy Award winner Brandi Carlile.
With this addition, the Buckets Band is playing 10 concerts of four different programs. Three concerts each will be held for the “Buckets of Rain” Dylan tribute, “Buckets of Prine” and “Buckets of Brandi,” with one “Best of Buckets” show featuring selections from all three songwriters.
The Buckets Band that is playing the concerts has longtime members Memphis-based multi-instrumentalist Eric Lewis, California-based string player Chris Irwin, local singers/songwriters Katie Dahl and Jeanne Kuhns, and bassist/percussionist Rich Higdon joined this year by bass player Mark Edgar Stuart.
“Buckets of Rain” concerts featuring the songs of Bob Dylan take place at 7 p.m. Aug. 4, 3 p.m. Aug. 7 and 7 p.m. Aug. 10. “Buckets of Prine” concerts featuring the songs of John Prine take place at 7 p.m. Aug. 5 and 9 and 3 p.m. Aug. 12. “Buckets of Brandi” concerts of the songs of Brandi Carlile take place at 7 p.m. Aug. 6, 3 p.m. Aug. 9 and 7 p.m. Aug. 11. The “Best of Buckets” concerts featuring selections from all three songwriters is at 3 p.m. Aug. 11.
All concerts are at Woodwalk Gallery, 6746 County G, Egg Harbor. Doors open at 5 p.m. for 7 p.m. shows, any time for the 3 p.m. matinees, and audience members are welcome to arrive early for bring-your-own picnics under a tent behind the barn on the grounds. Wine, beer, cocktails, soft drinks and non-alcoholic cocktails will be available for purchase, but carry-in alcohol is not permitted.
Tickets are $34 and advance tickets are recommended given the sellouts of past concerts. For tickets, visit woodwalkgallery.com/events.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Jazz, classical, ‘Buckets’ of songwriters in Door County August concerts
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
