LuluFest

THE FULL STORY

For 12 years (2004-2015), the Ritenuto Foundation presented the Wall Street Jazz Festival, in Kingston, NY, a free outdoor festival featuring women-led bands. Since relocating to Austin, the Foundation’s CArtistic Director, Peggy Stern, has become inspired to continue the festival here, possibly in an altered form, but keeping the founding principle intact. The bands are always led by women, free to make their own choices of personnel, free to present their own unique musical concept. 

LULUFEST intends to tap in to audience favorites, as well as to bring in talent from other places, hitherto unheard in this area. We will not stick to a strictly jazz formula, but all bands will include some form of improvisation. We focus on jazz, Latin, western swing, and original music. We  include women who are already well-known, as well as newcomers: some of our audience have been following our artists’ careers for many years, and others will be new to the ‘scene.’ 

At the Wall Street Jazz Festival, the presentations were elegant and professional, creating an intimate and personal environment. In presenting Austin’s LULUFEST, we intentionally keep that hometown flavor; it works in our favor to see neighbors enjoying this world-class music up close and personal. 

Men have long dominated the field of jazz - defined here as improvised American music. Travis County, as a forward-thinking community, provides the ideal forum to present this long, overdue presentation focusing on women as leaders. This is NOT a women’s music festival; to the contrary, most of the bands are generously populated with men. The principle behind the festival is simply that the women leaders and their concepts of the music are being presented here; thus, setting it apart from most other festivals in the country (and the world) at this juncture in history.