Philadelphia has always had a complicated, beautiful relationship with jazz. It’s a city where the music once poured out of neighborhood clubs and community rooms, where mentorship happened on bandstands as much as in classrooms. That’s why The Heart of Jazz Foundation caught my attention in a real way with its mission that is rooted in the best of our local tradition: nurture the next generation of jazz musicians by giving young players access, opportunity, and real-world guidance from artists who’ve lived the life.
Founded in 2023, The Heart of Jazz Foundation is launching its inaugural student jazz clinic series this spring with something that sounds simple but is actually rare: free jazz music clinics open to high school and college students, led by internationally recognized educators and artists. The foundation’s work is guided by a three-fold objective that feels equal parts practical and poetic: provide four-year university scholarships and mentorship to underserved students pursuing jazz careers, raise jazz awareness and create events in communities where it once flourished, and provide performance opportunities for jazz musicians of all ages. In other words, The Heart of Jazz Foundation isn’t only interested in applauding jazz history—it’s trying to build jazz futures.
What makes this series feel especially meaningful is how directly it aims to connect young musicians with masters of the craft. In a city that’s always hungry for cultural continuity, The Heart of Jazz Foundation is offering a bridge: from student to stage, from curiosity to discipline, and from “I love this music” to “I can build a life in it.”
The Heart of Jazz Foundation and a Mission Built on Mentorship
The Heart of Jazz Foundation is structured around education, access, and community impact—three things jazz has always relied on to survive and evolve. The foundation’s co-founder Joe Monaghan frames it clearly, and it’s the kind of statement you can hear as a call to action: “We believe that by sponsoring workshops and educational clinics, we can help teach, inspire, and inform young musicians while promoting unity and building community through jazz,” said Joe Monaghan, Heart of Jazz co-founder. That’s the heartbeat of the work, and it’s not abstract. It’s a plan, and this spring clinic series is the proof.
Monaghan also ties this new programming to a prior initiative that set the tone for what the foundation wants to accomplish: “In doing this series of educational clinics, we hope to build on the success of the first initiative we sponsored last October with John Patitucci, which offered students a rare opportunity to learn from a world-renowned bassist.” The phrase “rare opportunity” isn’t hype—it’s reality. Any young player who’s ever tried to get meaningful feedback from an elite-level musician knows how infrequently those doors open. The Heart of Jazz Foundation is opening them on purpose.
Just as important is the foundation’s intention to bring jazz back into the places where it once thrived, not as nostalgia, but as neighborhood culture that still deserves oxygen. That’s a particularly Philadelphia idea: honoring the past while insisting the present matters, too.
The Heart of Jazz Foundation Spring Master Classes
The Spring 2026 schedule is tight, focused, and stacked with talent. The Heart of Jazz Foundation is hosting three master classes featuring icons Amina Figarova, Warren Wolf, and Arturo O’Farrill—names that carry real weight for anyone who follows the music closely, and names that can change a student’s sense of what’s possible.
The first master class lands on Tuesday, March 10, led by world renowned pianist and composer Amina Figarova. She’s New York-based and Azerbaijan-born, and her background alone reads like a roadmap of discipline and evolution: she studied classical piano at Baku Conservatory and later attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Over the past several decades, she’s performed at major U.S. jazz clubs, concert halls, and festivals, including the Newport Jazz Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. For a student, that’s not just impressive—it’s a full spectrum of what a serious performance career can look like.
Next up, on Wednesday, April 29, The Heart of Jazz Foundation welcomes vibraphonist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Wolf. Wolf is an alumnus of both the Baltimore School for the Arts and Berklee College of Music, and his connection to Philadelphia makes this one feel especially personal. He’s currently an adjunct professor at Temple University and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and his performance and recording credits read like a modern jazz ecosystem: Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Christian McBride and Inside Straight, Nicholas Payton, David Sanborn, and more. Students won’t just be hearing about excellence—they’ll be meeting someone who actively operates at that level.
The final spring master class happens Friday, May 8, led by Latin jazz visionary Arturo O’Farrill. A celebrated Mexican American pianist, composer, and bandleader, O’Farrill is a 6-time Grammy and 2-time Latin Grammy winner, with nearly 25 albums released. He’s also been hailed by DownBeat as “one of our greatest living pianists,” which is a serious statement in a world that doesn’t hand out praise lightly. Beyond performance, he’s described here as a passionate educator and advocate for social and political justice, using his platform to champion diversity and unity. As founder and artistic director of both the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and Belongó, he’s deeply invested in cultural dialogue through the transformative power of music.
Monaghan puts the student impact into plain language, and it lands with the right gravity: “To be taught by these masters in the jazz field will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these young students,” noted Monaghan. “Our hope is that these educational clinics will also raise awareness of jazz in the communities where it once flourished and ensure the genre remains vibrant and relevant for future generations.”
The Figarova and Wolf master classes will be held from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Rendell Room at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia. The May 8 clinic will take place at 1 p.m. at Penn Live Arts inside the Zellerbach Theater at the Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. Interested high school or college students can register for the master classes HERE, and those who want to learn more about The Heart of Jazz Foundation or make a donation can visit theheartofjazz.org.
The Heart of Jazz Foundation and Why This Matters Right Now
In 2026, it’s easy to assume young musicians will “find everything online.” But jazz has never really worked that way. Jazz is learned in rooms with other people. It’s learned through listening, call-and-response, critique, repetition, and the subtle transfer of knowledge that happens when a master says, “Try it this way,” and you suddenly feel your playing open up. That’s the value The Heart of Jazz Foundation is protecting—and expanding.
Philadelphia’s arts scene thrives when it’s intergenerational and accessible, when a teenager with a beat-up horn and big ambition can find a path that doesn’t require privilege to begin. The fact that these clinics are free, open to students, and anchored in major cultural institutions in the city signals something bigger than a single event series. The Heart of Jazz Foundation is positioning jazz not as a museum piece, but as a living practice—one that deserves investment, visibility, and community support.
If you love this city’s cultural depth, this is the kind of initiative that feels worth showing up for, supporting, and talking about. Because the next great Philly jazz story doesn’t happen in hindsight. It starts when we decide to make space for it now.
Images: Courtesy of The Heart of Jazz, Jimmy Katz, Alexis Rotter
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