Every summer, Bryant Park turns its lawn into one of New York City’s most democratic stages — free, open to all, and reliably world-class. The 2026 season of Bryant Park Picnic Performances presented by Bank of America runs May 28 through September 11, and the opening weeks already deliver some of the city’s most compelling Latin and African Diaspora programming.
Spread a blanket, pack a picnic, and plan your evenings around these.
Bryant Park Picnic Performances
Live dance, music, theater
Bryant Park Lawn
Midtown South
May 28 – September 11
FREE
Latin Artists in Bryant Park Picnic Performances 2026
The Unsung Collective
African American chamber orchestra | Fri, June 19 | 7-8:15pm
On Juneteenth, the Unsung Collective — a nonprofit devoted to celebrating people of color in Western art music — brings the compositions of African American composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery to the Bryant Park lawn. Starburst, her exhilarating string showpiece, opens the program. Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, performed with soprano soloist Olanna Goudeau, follows alongside H. Leslie Adams’s Night Songs with baritone Phillip Bullock.
The evening closes with a guided meditation by Negesti. There is no better way to mark Juneteenth than this: a chamber orchestra on the grass in the heart of Manhattan, playing music rooted in the Black American experience with power, precision, and joy.
World Music Institute: World of Percussion Re-Imagined
Brazilian, Cuban, Indian, Japanese, Indian drums | Fri, June 12 | 7pm
The World Music Institute: World of Percussion Re-Imagined is the percussion summit of the summer. Every culture has the drum, and sometimes the drum comes from far away. But it’s always at the center of community celebrations.
Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista — whose solo albums include Banquet of the Spirits and Infinito — has spent four decades pushing the outer edges of rhythm in New York, collaborating with artists from Trey Anastasio to John Zorn while never losing his São Paulo roots.
Kíko: I did a performance photo shoot with Cyro 20 years ago as ModaFoto. You have to admire his endless carnival energy. He is the life of the party.
Cuban-born Pedrito Martinez, one of the world’s premier masters of Afro-Cuban folkloric music and the batá drum, brings the deep rumba tradition of Havana’s Cayo Hueso neighborhood to Midtown. His albums include The Pedrito Martinez Group (2013, Grammy nominated) and Habana Dreams (2016).
Kíko: Pedrito’s drum changed my life by making me aware of the ancestors. Nothing has been quite the same since.
Rounding out the World of Percussion lineup, Batalá New York is the all-womxn, Black-led percussion ensemble rooted in the samba reggae tradition of Salvador da Bahia. As a chapter of the global Batalá Mundo network — 30-plus bands worldwide playing the same Afro-Brazilian repertoire — they perform the compositions of Mestre Giba Gonçalves, founder of Batalá, on metal drums with polymer skins. Loud, fearless, and joyful in equal measure, Batalá New York transforms every performance into a full-body experience.
Samba-Reggae is a study in contrasts. It slows down samba’s intensity and rocks back on the low-end bass of the surdos drums.
SOLE Defined / It’s Showtime NYC!
African American & Diasporic hip hop, tap, and percussive dance | Thu, June 11 | 7-8:30pm
Two powerhouse companies rooted in African Diasporic tradition share the stage on June 11. SOLE Defined — founded by Guggenheim Choreographer Ryan K. Johnson — presents “The Pulse,” a polyrhythmic journey through tap, body percussion, and sand dance that traces global rhythmic patterns through the human body and pulls the audience directly into the performance itself.
It’s Showtime NYC!, the street dance company that became the first resident dance company at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, follows with a live mix of rap, electric cello, and hip-hop dance — raw, direct, and grounded in the New York street tradition that grew from African American and Afro-Caribbean roots.
New York City Opera: American Classics
African American and Puerto Rican sopranos | Fri, May 29 | 7-9pm
Larisa Martínez is a Puerto Rican soprano who sings on the world’s great stages, has been touring with pop opera star Andrea Bocelli, and regularly collaborates with violinist Joshua Bell.
Latonia Moore is a multiple Grammy-winning African American soprano who sings on the world’s great stages. She has been singing Bess in Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera and other great world operas.
Wycliffe Gordon and Friends
African American jazz | Thu, May 28 | 7-8:30pm
Harlem-based Jazzmobile — the first US nonprofit created specifically for jazz — opens the 2026 season with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, five-time Jazz Journalists Association Trombonist of the Year and a veteran of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra under Wynton Marsalis.
Gordon’s plunger mute mastery and hard-swinging quartet style feel like a direct line from the 1930s to the present. It is exactly the right way to kick off a summer of free music in New York City.
More Info
It all happens on the Bryant Park Lawn on Sixth Avenue at 42nd St. And it’s all FREE.