8th Annual Emerging Artist Festival, 2025

The VJC is honored to host Ulysses Owens Jr and Generation Y.

• Langston Hughes II, saxophone

• Anthony Hervey, trumpet

• Liya Grigoryan, piano

• Guillermo Lopez, bass

• Ulysses Owens Jr., drums

Since 2018, this festival has been a centerpiece of the VJC’s mission to highlight the rising generation of jazz artists while fostering meaningful connections between students, mentors, and our local community.

The EAF originated as an outgrowth of the VJC’s regular concert series. Those early collaborations introduced us to talents like Camille Thurman and Samara Joy, who have since earned international acclaim. This concept has now evolved into a full weekend festival that combines student performances, artist clinics, and a headline concert that proves that the future of our music is in good hands.

This year’s festival features three-time Grammy Award-winner Ulysses Owens Jr., and his acclaimed group, Generation Y.

Owens is a drummer, composer, educator, author, and cultural entrepreneur. He is the Small Ensemble Director at The Juilliard School and the Artistic Director of Don’t Miss a Beat, a Florida-based non-profit that provides arts access to youth. In a conversation with Bottom of the Bill Podcast, Owens commented “The arts are the bridge to a better life; we believe that by introducing kids to the arts, it helps them develop. It’s my life’s work – being an artistic director changes how I do everything.”

Ulysses Owens was selected as Jazz Drummer of 2024 by Modern Drum Magazine Readers Poll and featured on the cover of their December Magazine issue. He also won Drumeo’s 2024 “Jazz Drummer of the Year” award. He was recently inducted into the Jacksonville Music Hall of Fame and selected as Rising Star Jazz Drummer of the Year by the 2025 Downbeat Reader’s Poll. Ulysses Owens has released 7 albums as a bandleader including two as a big band leader.

Owens is a frequent performer at Jazz at Lincoln Center and appears on dozens of recordings including those led by Christian McBride, Michael Dease, Joey Alexander, Diane Shuur, Renée Flemming, Alicia Olatuja and many others. He has published three books Jazz Brushes for the Modern Drummer, Jazz Big Band for the Modern Drummer, and The Musician’s Career Guide and has presented clinics throughout the world.

The Generation Y Band is a concept that Owens’ brought to fruition in 2019. To form his bands, Owens gleans the best musicians from the top jazz conservatories in NYC. Historical examples of this model include Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program. Both of these legends were renowned for launching the careers of paradigm-shifting musicians. Owens’ Generation Y is an updated version of this concept. In a podcast with Bite Size Jazz, Owens reflected: “I think that the biggest thing that we can do in jazz right now is to have an intergenerational focus… the best of everything and anything is when you have all voices represented.” Generation Y embodies the burgeoning talent, skillset, and vision of the new generation.