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Joe Jencks - April Tour Dates - 2026

4-9-26 ~ The Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, D.C.

Fans can watch the livestream in several places: Via embedded YouTube video at the top of the show's page on the website: https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/millennium-stage/2026/april/joe-jencks/

4-10-26 ~ Chrysalis Coffeehouse - Bull Run UU - Manassas, VA

4-11-26 ~ FootMad Concerts (State Capitol Complex) Charleston, WV

4-15-26 ~ Joe Jencks & Deidre McCalla in Concert, Marietta, OH

4-18-26 ~ Joe Jencks & Deidre McCalla - Indy Folk Series - Indianapolis, IN

4-19-26 ~ Joe Jencks & Deidre McCalla - (Sunday Morning) UUC Indianapolis, IN

4-24-26 ~ Two Way Street Coffeehouse - Downers Grove, IL

Dear Friends in Music,

I am fresh from a weekend of celebrating the life and music of Bob Franke with deep community in Massachusetts, and my heart is full. He was a remarkable songwriter, and a really decent human. I met Bob in 1998, and he was one of the people who helped me learn what I needed to learn to hit the road full-time two years later. It was an honor to be with the tribe, and share a weekend of celebration, sadness, stories, and beautiful music with friends and colleagues.

Up next, I have a run of shows this month from D.C. through Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and finally back home in Chicagoland. Including three engagements with my dear friend and joyous collaborator - Deidre McCalla.

Thursday, April 9th - I will be at The Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center. There is an essay below that I wrote, for those that want to know more about why. But in short, this specific program has been offering free music to the public 365 days a year for most of the last 28 years. And I am keen to help them continue their mission while it is possible. I am eager to take that stage and sing songs like Lady of The Harbor, Deportees, The Ballad of JeShawn, We shall Overcome, and other songs that remind us of who we are. Songs that witness to the lived experience of the people who are so often written out of the story. It’s what I do.

Then I’ll be onto VA for the Chrysalis Coffeehouse in Manassas, and to FootMad Concerts in Charleston, WV. Then hanging with my road buddy and songwriter extraordinaire - Deidre McCalla. We have three engagements in OH and IN. And I’ll wrap up the month with a return toTwo Way Street Coffeehouse in Downers Grove, IL. An institution of Midwest Folk.

Note - the concerts from the Millennium Stage, Indy Folk Concerts (w/ Deidre), and Two Way Street are all accessible via Live Stream. Details on each presenter’s website under tickets. Please tune in via the web even if you can’t make the performances in person.

Info for these and other upcoming concerts can be found at: https://joejencks.com/calendar/

Thanks for helping to keep Folk music alive and well. As Utah Phillips said, “We are singing through the hard times, and working for the better days to come!”

In Gratitude & Song,

~ Joe Jencks (4-8-26)

The Millennium Stage: Because It Still Matters

Copyright 2026, Joe Jencks, Turtle Bear Music

There are many ways to speak truth in this world. Some with our words, more by our deeds. But through music, word and deed become one in a specific way that has always held the greatest power to move my heart. The songs of my childhood, as sung by everyone from Pete Seeger to Holly Near, Harry Belafonte to Bob Franke, Odetta to Rod MacDonald, carried a kind of truth that permeated the veil of midwestern politeness and told me that there was a bigger world out there.

I realized through those songs that music was a vessel I could sail out onto the sea of humanity to explore, learn, and become a part of so much more than I saw from a classroom in Rockford, IL. I wanted to sail the vessel of my life onto that magnificent sea. I wanted to let music carry me out into a wider world where I could know other people and their ideas, cultures, songs, and stories. I am grateful.

Last year, an opportunity was offered to me to perform on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. I was thrilled. I know many people who have performed there over the years. And among the many stages at the Kennedy Center, the two Millennium Stages are unique. Founded in the late 1990s, their mission was to bring world-class performances to the Kennedy Center and offer them absolutely free to the public, 365 days a year. They even funded a shuttle service from the nearest mass-transit stop to the site, to make it easier for more people to come hear the music, for free. Until the start of the pandemic in 2020, the Millennium Stages did just that. They have offered free performances of world-class art, every day of the year.

As the Millennium Stage is close to completing its third decade, I find myself being asked to play on one of these august stages. And because I still believe in the necessity for and the specificity of the mission of the Millennium Stage, I said, “Yes.”

The power of protest is for many of us a foundational expression of our civil liberties and our convictions. But in this case, I feel that the power of witnessing through the art and music is the greater call. I have the immense privilege to take a stage in the heart of our nation’s capital, and to sing the songs of my heroines and heroes along with my own compositions. I get to sing songs of beauty, wonder, hope, and struggle; the narratives and the lived experiences of workers, immigrants, the poor, and the othered. The ones whom society seems to dismiss and disappear in every generation. This is a deep expression of my beliefs. Show up and sing the songs.

I am also mindful of the nearly 3,000 workers who will likely lose their jobs in the near future. I am aware of the extraordinary good that has entered so many hearts and minds through their work and dedication to the music. And through the people who listened, that same goodness has entered the world.

I am mindful of the mission of the Millennium Stage and the people who continue to serve it, the people who continue to believe in the power of multicultural dialogue as it happens through performance art and music. They are also heroic. And when I take the stage on April 9th, I do so to continue the mission of the Millennium Stage and to witness to the wonder, beauty, and power of song… And of the people. We the people.

My life would be very different if I had not experienced powerful and moving music in my youth. Free concerts in parks, free performances from the local symphony, free music in museums and libraries, and in local performing arts centers. Without that bridge, I would never have become the musician I am nor become friends and colleagues with so many of my musical mentors. But because of the music I got to hear, I became so much more aware of the interconnectedness of humanity. It was and is magic to me.

Music showed me that the world is approachable. You show up with an idea, a mission, and a willingness to work with others, and you can accomplish amazing things. The work of the Millennium Stage over the last three decades is amazing. It is unknowable if the Millennium Stage will continue. But while it is alive and serving its mission, I choose to be a part of that legacy of empowerment and goodness.

And so I will sing my heart out on April 9. I will sing songs of my own creation and songs of my mentors and heroes. I will sing for and with the people there, and those who tune in via the live-stream. Because music heals. Music builds bridges. Music affirms and uplifts. And, because music is how I continue to sail on the vast sea of humanity and let others be my teachers and guides. Music is how I connect with a wider world and it is how I bring some measure of that world back to the people I meet in my travels. And so I will keep singing through the hard times, and working for the better days to come.

~ Joe Jencks (4-4-26)

Joe Jencks & Bob Franke at after a concert at The Old Sloop Coffeehouse in Rockport, MA. April 2025.

Joe Jencks & Deidre McCalla in State College, PA - Spring 2025