Organizers of Jazz on the Plazz and Los Gatos Music and Arts are presenting a new community event: a summer bluegrass festival.
Local bluegrass and Americana artists will perform June 22 at the Town Park Plaza for the admission-free festival, the latest in Los Gatos Music and Arts’ efforts to host free community events while also raising money to support arts education.
Jonathan Knowles, co-founder of Los Gatos Music and Arts, said the event will kick off the Jazz on the Plazz summer concert series. The first official Jazz on the Plazz concert of the season is set for June 26 .
“Just like with all the concerts we’ve been doing for over 20 years, our goal is to make sure that we are sticking to our mission in promoting the roots of American music and music education for youth, as well as bringing people together for community and maybe even doing a little good for the local businesses here,” Knowles said.
Knowles said the artists are all either from Los Gatos or the Bay Area at large, and feature a mix of well-known and established artists as well as younger, newer ones. Andre Thierry will close out the Town Park Plaza stage with his accordion soul music; his set will be followed by a songwriters concert at Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company featuring Ren Geisick and Chris Motter. Other artists on the bill are Wildcat Mountain Ramblers, the Goat Hill Girls and California Blues Runners.
“That’s one of the things we try to do is give young artists a chance to be on stage as well as some that are world famous,” he said.
Organizers are anticipating a few thousand attendees at the daylong event, co-chaired by Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company owner Teri Hope. Knowles is recommending, per previous concert policy, that attendees bring their own lawn chairs.
The event is sponsored by El Camino Health, the Los Gatos Morning Rotary Club and the Town of Los Gatos. The latter provided Los Gatos Music and Arts with a grant to help fund this and other events.
The goal, Knowles said, is to make this event recurring each year to help kick off the summer concert series and support their overall mission of promoting music and arts education.
“If we don’t have young people who are learning what this kind of music is and how to play this kind of music, we will run out of people who know what this music is and know how to play this music,” he added.
For more information, visit https://jazzontheplazz.com.