Jazz à Sens

Jazz à Sens: An Exceptional Festival in the Heart of Burgundy

Born in 2006 on the initiative of the Théâtre municipal de Sens, the Jazz à Sens festival has established itself over two decades as the major jazz event in the Yonne and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. Every late January, for three consecutive nights, the Italian-style theater in the capital of the Sénonais region becomes a temple of jazz, hosting renowned artists from the French and international jazz scene.

The festival is based on a clearly stated ambition by its director Didier Weill: “to reach the widest possible audience, satisfying both seasoned amateurs and more popular, less initiated audiences”. This generous editorial line explains the diversity of the programming, which embraces both the most rigorous acoustic jazz and the most contemporary and inventive forms of improvised music.

An Italian-Style Theater as a Setting

The festival takes place entirely at the Théâtre municipal de Sens, an architectural gem built in 1882 in the Italian theater style. With its 350 seats, wrought-iron boxes and balconies, intimate capacity, and warm acoustics, the theater offers artists and the public a concert setting of rare quality. The proximity between the stage and the audience creates that unique atmosphere that marks great jazz evenings: an exchange, almost a conversation, between the musicians and their audience.

Located in the heart of boulevard des Garibaldi, the theater is easily accessible from the Sens SNCF train station – less than a ten-minute walk – and from the main towns of the Yonne and neighboring regions, giving it a reach far beyond the Sénonais area.

A High-Flying Program

Each edition of the festival features three concerts over three evenings, mixing renowned headliners and emerging artists, acoustic ensembles and modern orchestrations. Over the years, the festival has hosted essential figures of contemporary jazz:

• Biréli Lagrène, master of gypsy jazz guitar and fusion jazz, who came to improvise freely with his trio (2024)
• Henri Texier, legendary double bassist, a towering figure of French jazz (2024)
• Matthieu Boré and his Gumbo Kings, fiery and sensitive jazz-funk (2024)
• Vincent Peirani, accordionist crowned with three Victoires du Jazz awards, with his quintet “Living Being IV” (2026)
• Sylvain Rifflet, avant-garde saxophonist-clarinetist, and his sax-synthesizer-drums trio (2026)
• No(w) Beauty, a young Parisian quartet awarded the Coup de Cœur Jazz 2023 by the Académie Charles Cros (2026)

Jazz à Sens in the Sens Cultural Season

The festival is part of the multidisciplinary season of the Théâtre municipal de Sens – called Sens en Scènes – which offers around forty theater, music, and dance performances from September to April. Within this framework, the jazz festival is a winter highlight, mobilizing all the cultural, institutional, and tourist partners of the Sénonais region around a shared event.

A Jazz Pass is offered each season to enjoy the three concerts at a preferential rate, demonstrating the loyalty of an audience that returns year after year for this exceptional winter event. Ticket sales traditionally open in September for season subscribers and members, before opening to the general public.

Sens, a City of Jazz

Jazz à Sens is not the only jazz event in the Sénonais region, but it is the most emblematic. It coexists with other local musical initiatives – the association 606 Reed and Blues and its Nuit du Blues, the Jeudis Jazz evenings at the Epona Hôtel, the Garçon la Note! festival in the summer – which make Sens and its territory a vibrant and appealing musical scene, far beyond what its size might suggest.

Every late January, as the winter cold settles over the Gothic cathedral, the Théâtre municipal de Sens lights up and vibrates to the rhythm of jazz. This is the promise kept for twenty years by the Jazz à Sens festival: to offer the city and its inhabitants the best of contemporary jazz, in an exceptional venue, just a stone's throw from home.