CALENDAR EDITORS
San Francisco International Arts Festival Presents:
Lua Hadar with Twist in Concert: Jazz Without Borders
May 08, 2026 @ 8:00 PM (Doors @ 7:30 PM)
Community Music Center
544 Capp St., San Francisco, CA 94110
Tickets On Sale Now:
Early Bird (till March 31) $20
Advance $25, Door $30
DIRECT TICKET LINK
https://sfiaf.vbotickets.com/event/Lua_Hadar_with_Twist_Jazz_Without_Borders_SF_International_Arts_Festival/184154
SHORTENED TICKET LINK
https://tinyurl.com/TicketsLua
ARTIST PAGE
https://www.sfiaf.org/sfiaf2026_lua_hadar
Lua Hadar with Twist: Jazz Without Borders
Lua’s jazz without borders blends global styles and languages in a unique jazz voice. She peppers her show with funny stories to connect the global dots between her influences and her songs. Her concert performance with her band Twist features originals and songs from samba to swing in a musical world voyage.
photo credit: Kingmond Young
MORE LINKS:
VIDEO
https://youtu.be/Zs8nfmHS2pk?si=h-aXP2fFEqhgkZLD
SFIAF WEBSITE
sfiaf.org
ARTIST WEBSITES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, San Francisco, CA
International Vocalist brings it Home to the Bay
Lua Hadar’s Jazz Without Borders blends global styles and languages in a unique jazz voice
One night only! The San Francisco International Arts Festival presents Lua Hadar with Twist on May 8 at 8pm at the Community Music Center concert hall, located at 544 Capp Street in the San Francisco Mission District . Chanteuse - raconteuse (singer-storyteller) Lua Hadar brings songs from diverse languages and traditions into the jazz idiom, connecting the global dots with funny and heart-warming stories. Her blog and podcast, Nomad Notes, has been telling these stories for a few years; now she takes the stage again with her band Twist to sing and tell it live. https://tinyurl.com/TicketsLua
“Typically I’ve introduced my tunes with a joke or an anecdote,” says Lua, “telling the audience about where the song comes from, what it means and why I sing it. As my song list has expanded beyond French and Italian to touch on languages such as Japanese and Malagasy, this practice has become very rich for me. And as life goes on, I’ve got more stories to tell. This newest edition of what we do in Jazz Without Borders includes some wild stories from Lisbon and also from Romania, where I recently had a job on a film shoot. I love to reach out to the audience and make them laugh. I feel it creates community and hope.”
Lua currently splits her time between San Francisco and Lisbon, after a decades-long fascination with Portugal. Lisbon is a city of art irrepressibly expressed with mosaic tiles and murals on walls, at train stations, and on the very pavement one walks on. If you look for a listing of Lisbon jazz clubs online, you’ll only find two or three. In reality, the jazz scene in Lisbon features great players, unobtrusively playing NYC-worthy jazz in tiny clubs and at jam sessions. There are many similarities between Lisbon and San Francisco; the cosmopolitan mix of diverse cultures, the signature bridges (the 25 April Bridge and the Golden Gate), which link the cities together. Lisbon retains its Old World charm, while keeping pace with the cultural capitals of Europe. And all that sitting in at jazz jams has now paid off with a full evening concert for Lua in Lisbon on April 3, at world music club O Grilo Beato.
“The pandemic and my move to Lisbon took me out of the live music scene in San Francisco for a while,” says Lua. “To my shock, it’s been eight years since I debuted my first original music video at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, in my last public performance there. It is so meaningful to me that the SFIAF should be the venue that provides the chance to perform again for a Bay Area audience. During these years, my vocal register has dropped, with the result that I am now singing jazz in the range that my mentors have always wanted me to sing in. So, the audience will hear some familiar tunes in new keys as well as some originals and some new tunes.”
A special treat will be a guest appearance by Beth Wilmurt, beloved by Bay Area audiences for her work as an actor, director, and choral director. On May 8, Beth debuts her original song based on a wild experience she had in Lisbon with Lua.
Lua’s band Twist has taken different forms through the years since its establishment in 2008, with their eponymous album, Lua Hadar with Twist. From a group of ten performers to record their 2012 live concert film, Like A Bridge, to the trio backing Lua for the upcoming May 8 concert, the constant has been Lua’s 20-year collaboration with Music Director and pianist, Jason Martineau.
Dr. J, as Lua likes to call him, is a multi-talented artist, whose compositions have been released in 20 albums of his own, in addition to his work with a variety of vocalists. He works in multiple capacities with many different idioms and styles, from world fusion and jazz, to industrial, rock, pop, and classical, creating film scores and pieces for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo piano, and chorus, as well as a full-length musical. Latin Grammy Nominee bassist Sascha Jacobsen is a 6th generation musician and Tango artist, who has performed with the likes of Kronos Quartet, Rita Moreno, Hugh Jackman, Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, Josh Groban, Kristin Chenoweth, and so many more. Bay Area audiences also know him for his original silent film scores, which he performs live with his quartet. The newest member of Twist, drummer Shawn Myers, is a consummate jazz player whose world music studies have taken him into the Vodou Drumming Tradition and back again.
Lua Hadar is a multi-lingual vocalist, storyteller, emcee, comedienne, songwriter, independent producer and arts educator. She has charmed audiences around the world in San Francisco, New York, LA, Paris, Lille, Verona, Lisbon, and at the Bangkok International Festival of Dance and Music. Lua is a language geek, and has brought songs from diverse cultures into her jazz without borders, recording and performing with music director Jason Martineau since 2005. Independently produced by her New Performance Group, founder Lua Hadar has released three albums with her band Twist, as well as a concert film, Like A Bridge. Her first original music video, Our Common Humanity, premiered at the SFIAF in 2018. She released her second original music video, Saudade, in May 2020. In Lisbon, she loves sitting in at jazz jams, documenting her cross-cultural experience by writing and producing her blog and podcast, Nomad Notes. Lua was a founding member of the Bay Area comic girl trio, The Kitchenettes (described as The Andrews Sisters on acid), with whom she appeared in the States and at the Italian National Festival of Comic Song.
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
https://sfiaf.vbotickets.com/event/Lua_Hadar_with_Twist_Jazz_Without_Borders_SF_International_Arts_Festival/184154