The City Parks Foundation is excited to announce the 2017 season of SummerStage, New York City’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival, bringing more than 100 performances to Central Park and 15 neighborhood parks throughout the five boroughs. This year’s festival, presented by Capital One Bank, will showcase over 150 unique artists performing shows from a plethora of genres and disciplines, including indie-rock, hip-hop, Latin, jazz, R&B, salsa, bhangra, poetry, opera, contemporary dance, and theater. SummerStage will kick off its first free show of the season with performances from the legendary Mavis Staples and contemporary blues artist Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely Good Music? in Central Park on June 3rd. Staples will lead a powerful vocal showcase of rock, blues, gospel and R&B. Digable Planets will reunite to open our citywide SummerStage run with a rare performance in Coffey Park in Brooklyn on June 21st. New York rap icon KRS-One and DJ Chuck Chillout will also perform in Coffey Park on June 25th and dynamic emcee Jadakiss will take the mic at Crotona Park on August 6th. Wu-Tang Clan founding member GZA? “The Genius” will drop knowledge in Corporal Thompson Park in Staten Island on July 23rd. Brasil Summerfest returns featuring iconic samba singer Elza Soares and rising star Liniker e os Carmelows on August 5th in Central Park. Jazz veteran Joshua Redman Quartet will pay tribute to Charlie Parker as part of the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on August 27th in Manhattan’s Tompkins Square Park.

• The City Parks Foundation, is dedicated to invigorating and transforming parks into dynamic, vibrant centers of urban life through sports, arts, community building, and education programs for all New Yorkers.
• At City Parks Foundation, we believe thriving parks mean thriving communities.
• City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage, New York City’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival, presents over 100 performances and benefit concerts each year in 16 parks throughout the five boroughs.
• Since its inception 32 years ago, more than six million people from NYC and around the world have enjoyed SummerStage.
• This year’s festival, presented by Capital One Bank, will showcase over 150 performances ranging from American pop, Latin and world music to dance, spoke word, rock, hip-hop, jazz, and theater.
• SummerStage’s Central Park opening night is on June 3^rd with legendary soul icon Mavis Staples.  SummerStage’s opening night for our city-wide shows at neighborhood parks all over New York City, begin on June 21st in Coffey Park in Brooklyn with hip-hop trio Digable Planets.
• SummerStage 2017 features performances from Elvis Costello, Khalid, Bob Moses, Slick Rick the Ruler, Elza Sores, Seun Kuti, KRS-One, BalletX, La India, Valerie June, Frankie Negron, R0bert Glasper Experiment and many more
• We sell reasonably-priced tickets to 20 SummerStage benefit concerts in Central Park, produced in conjunction with The Bowery Presents, as a way to keep all of our other SummerStage productions free of charge for all New Yorkers.
• SummerStage will also celebrate the beloved saxophonist Charlie “Bird”Parker with our annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Our annual celebration of jazz in New York, brings together storied, veteran players and the next generations of jazz artists for four days of performances from August 24-27. The festival, which each year coincides with Charlie Parker’s birthday, takes place uptown in Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park and downtown in Tompkins Square Park, across the street from the apartment Parker called home.
• For a full list of the City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage Festival, please visit summerstage.org