UW–Madison’s Tandem Press is hosting a new season of its Friday Jazz Series during the 2025–26 academic year, featuring four concerts with students from the Mead Witter School of Music’s Jazz Studies Program.
Ensembles will be led by faculty members Johannes Wallmann, the John and Carolyn Peterson Chair in Jazz Studies, along with Arun Lūthrā, Nick Moran, Mitchell Shiner, and Dan VanZeeland.
Friday Jazz Series concerts will take place at Tandem Press, 1743 Commercial Avenue in Madison, and will also be livestreamed online. All performances are free and open to the public.
The 2025–26 Friday Jazz Series performance dates are as follows:
Friday, Oct. 3, 5–7 p.m.
Blue Note Ensemble (directed by Johannes Wallmann and Mitchell Shiner)
Jazz Standards Ensemble (directed by Arun Lūthrā)
Friday, Nov. 7, 5–7 p.m.
Jazz Composers Group (directed by Arun Lūthrā)
Contemporary Jazz Ensemble (directed by Dan VanZeeland)
Friday, Feb. 27, 5–7 p.m.
Blue Note Ensemble (directed by Mitchell Shiner)
Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble (directed by Nick Moran)
Friday, May 1, 5–7 p.m.
Jazz Standards Ensemble (directed by Arun Lūthrā)
Contemporary Jazz Ensemble (directed by Dan VanZeeland)
While attending Friday Jazz Series concerts, audience members can also explore the current exhibition in Tandem’s Apex Gallery. The first concert will be the final day of “In Tandem: Ruhl & Caporael,” on view in the gallery through Oct. 3. This series of abstract collages, created collaboratively by artist Suzanne Caporael and Tandem Press printmaker Jason Ruhl, brings together their different styles in a shared exploration of form, texture, and color.
Tandem Press is one of only four professional printmaking studios and presses affiliated with a university in the United States. Housed within UW–Madison’s School of Education, it is primarily self-funded and has hosted internationally renowned artists such as Derrick Adams, Jim Dine, Jeffrey Gibson, David Lynch, Judy Pfaff, Alison Saar, Sean Scully, and Mickalene Thomas.
Tandem’s unique model integrates professional art production with education, offering UW–Madison students the opportunity to work alongside master printers and visiting artists. Prints created at Tandem are represented in prestigious collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Whitney Museum of American Art.