The fourth edition of the Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival opened yesterday with a program that, already on its first day, showed that the festival cannot be reduced to its evening concerts alone. From the morning roundtable at the Rector’s Palace, through Camila Meza’s concert in the Grand Hotel Garden, to a jam session that continued past midnight, the first festival day unfolded as an almost uninterrupted conversation – sometimes in words, more often in music.

The opening roundtable, Creating Longevity in Your Career, was led by the festival’s Jazz Master Jamey Haddad, one of the world’s most distinguished percussionists and educators. He was joined by Camila Meza, Donny McCaslin, Rachel Eckroth, John Hadfield, Antonio Sánchez and festival co-founder and Artistic Director Thana Alexa. The conversation touched on questions that rarely take centre stage in music schools: how to recognize the right opportunity and turn down the wrong one, how much adaptability an artistic path can withstand before an artist loses their own voice, and how the uncertainty of a musician’s life can become a creative impulse rather than an obstacle.

After a short break, the program continued with the masterclass The Trance of the Groove, led by keyboardist Jason Lindner, David Bowie’s longtime collaborator from the album Blackstar, bassist Jonathan Maron, co-founder of the New York band Groove Collective, and Thana Alexa. Groove was approached not as a technical category, but as a space of shared presence and trust: the participants worked on deep listening, the spontaneous shaping of musical parts, and a sense of transitions, dynamics and the ensemble’s collective pulse. The emphasis, the mentors suggested, was not on individual virtuosity, but on each musician’s ability to serve the whole through their contribution.

The evening part of the festival opened with a welcome cocktail at the Lopud 1483 complex, where guests were addressed by Tilda Grossel Bogdanović, Thana Alexa and the festival’s principal mentor Jamey Haddad. The evening in the Grand Hotel Garden belonged to Portal, a richly atmospheric musical journey in which Camila Meza explores themes of motherhood and transformation, bringing together contemporary jazz, Latin American folklore and lush electronic textures. She was joined by Gabriel Chakarji on piano and synthesizers, Alejandra Sofia on backing vocals and Elé Howell on drums, while the album’s sumptuous studio sound was translated into an agile, highly interactive concert format that revealed how much room this ensemble leaves for improvisation. The program then continued with a jam session led by Thana Alexa, Jason Lindner and Jonathan Maron, as what had been explored during the day’s masterclass became practice in the evening – improvisation without sheet music or prearranged plans, with the festival participants taking the stage alongside their mentors for the first time this year.

“It was incredible to perform at the Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival. The audience was fantastic, the energy was beautiful and, after just the first day, I can already say that I am truly having a wonderful time. I am very excited to continue this experience, to share it with everyone and to have fun together. This place is truly magical,” said Camila Meza.

The second festival day begins today with the conversation Mind, Body, & Spirit for the Freelance Musician, in which Donny McCaslin, Alejandra Sofia and Thana Alexa will discuss preserving creative energy, sustainable habits and preventing burnout in a profession without a safety net. This will be followed by the masterclass by the festival’s principal mentor Jamey Haddad, Demystifying and Exploring the Geometry of the Playing Field of Time, which introduces participants to the concepts of metric and non-metric time, as well as the application of South Indian rhythmic scales in the Western musical tradition, opening up a different perspective on pulse, structure and temporal relationships in improvisation and composition.

Tonight at 20:30, pianist Rachel Eckroth and drummer John Hadfield will perform in the Grand Hotel Garden with Speaking in Tongues, a duo project rooted in improvisation and open-ended exploration, in which compositions leave space for the unfiltered flow of musical thought in the moment of performance. This will be followed by a jam session in which the festival participants will perform concepts from Haddad’s Playing Field of Time.

Tickets are available through Entrio, and boat transfer on the Argosy from Dubrovnik is organized for festival audiences. Departure is from Lapadska obala, in front of the Faculty of Economics, at 19:00, with return from the Hotel Lafodia pier at 00:15. Capacity on the transfer is limited, and a seat is secured exclusively by purchasing a ticket. All information about the program and accompanying events will be available at pontalopud.hr and on the social media channels of the Ponta Lopud Creative Platform.

In 2026, the Ponta Lopud Creative Platform presents three summer cultural programs, welcoming all lovers of the arts, especially film, music and literature. The Ponta Lopud Film Festival was the first of the three events; held from 25 to 28 June, it was dedicated to the art of film. The second event, the popular Ponta Lopud Jazz Festival, will bring music lovers to the island from 27 to 29 August, while Ponta Lopud Book Bridge will transform the island into a literary retreat from 17 to 19 September, rounding off the summer events.