New York-based collective jazzes up peninsula
Published 10:30 pm Sunday, August 24, 2025
Svetlana and The New York Jazz Collective, an award-winning New York-based jazz group, performed “An Evening of Jazz and Swing” on Wednesday in the Triumvirate Theatre in Kenai.
On Tuesday, the day before the concert, the band put on a jazz workshop in the Soldotna Public Library. The event included a short performance by the band, an open Q&A session, and a jam session for local musicians.
About 40 people attended the workshop, during which the band took questions and described jazz as a language to be learned in a way not dissimilar to how someone learns to speak English, according to KDLL organizers. Several members of the audience joined the band on piano and on bass for a song during the workshop as well.
The show drew a crowd to the theater where Svetlana and her band lit up the stage and performed a mix of original works — many written for the group’s current tour — and a couple of recognizable tunes.
Wednesday’s concert doubled as a fundraiser for KDLL, one of the many public radio stations in the state and nation grappling with Congress’s recent recission of federal funding for public media.
KDLL Board President Shaylon Cochran said this week that the station was eager to bring a new sound and a new experience to Kenai listeners.
“I’m excited that we can get some new music in from the outside to the central peninsula and offer folks a chance to hear something that they might not ordinarily have a chance to hear and be exposed to,” he said. “From KDLL’s perspective, that’s sort of what we’re all about.”
Jonas Oyoumick is interning with the Peninsula Clarion through the Kenaitze Indian Tribe Daggeyi internship program. Clarion reporter Jake Dye contributed to this story.
