2026 Season Announcement

This summer, the Nebraska Crossroads Music Festival returns for nearly two weeks of creative, expressive, and world-class performances from artists both close to home and from afar, from July 19–August 2 in Lincoln and Omaha.

Thanks to the love, sweat, determination, and joy that you, I, and so many others have poured into this unassuming patch of the summer, the festival has grown from a spunky start-up into a vibrant ecosystem rooted in cross-cultural collaboration, free access, deep human expression, fun, and friendship.

Now in its seventh year, the festival begins to bear the full fruit of that ecosystem. Projects that first emerged in earlier seasons return with greater depth and color—all with strong Nebraska roots. At the same time, new seeds are being planted through two artist residencies, alongside performances you truly won’t hear anywhere else. We celebrate the local and welcome the international, knowing that at its heart, it’s all about the hang—and the music that connects us.

Among this year’s highlights is La Folia Global, a project born at the 2023 festival and now returning after an international tour and recording. Valeri Tolstov’s masterwork brings together Vivaldi’s La Folia with traditional Armenian and Hindustani music so seamlessly that it feels as though they were always meant to coexist. It also features festival superstars like duduk standard-bearer Emmanuel Hovhannisyan and tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das.

Fun for kids is at a whole new level this year as well, including a second year of collaboration with Family Day at Sheldon Museum of Art, complete with instrument-making and collaborative performances and a kid’s entrepreneurial market at this year’s Omaha Showcase.

The Festival Orchestra—a joyful crew of local and visiting artists—returns by popular demand with a new set of performances featuring music written by, featuring, and loved by festival artists, including new works by Valeri Tolstov, Marie Sønderskov, Jewel Rodgers, Sandeep Das and myself.

Jewel Rodgers, Nebraska’s State Poet, joins the quietly rambunctious producer Fredrik Serholt for a recording residency that brings together spoken word, dexterous synthesizer melodies, and the full creative energy of the festival’s artist community. You can hear a preview of their work here, with much more to come.

Of the many community events woven into the festival, I’m especially excited about the return of the jam session, where audiences and artists come together for an afternoon of free improvisation. Some of the most intense, moving, and unexpectedly intimate musical moments in the festival’s history have happened here.

Throughout the rest of the festival, you’ll also encounter the hip-hop Dream Warriors collective in their second Crossroads residency, the Nordic experimental duo ííS, our Cuban jazz-fusion collaborators Mixed Harmony, an intimate Heart to Heart concert — a revue night of artists’ individual love songs, and our signature Omaha and Lincoln Showcases. Join us at Gene Leahy Mall, Stransky Park, BLUEBARN Theatre, Gallery 1516, UNO, UNL, St. Cecilia’s Cathedral, and more.

Explore the full schedule and reserve your free tickets at NebraskaMusicFest.org/2026-Program

Welcome to the world, and welcome home—Crossroads 2026.