Nearly 1,000 Vermont students will bring live jazz to downtown Burlington this June as part of the 2026 Discover Jazz Festival, with dozens of school ensembles scheduled to perform free concerts on Church Street.

According to a community announcement, 44 ensembles from 36 schools, representing 993 students from across Vermont, will take part in the festival’s 43rd year.

The student concerts are organized by The Flynn, which produces the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival and oversees its education and community programs. All student performances are free and open to the public.

Student performances highlight statewide participation

Participating schools span Vermont, including Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties, central Vermont, Addison County, Lamoille Valley, the Northeast Kingdom and southern Vermont, along with visiting ensembles from New York, according to the announcement.

Chittenden County schools listed include Burlington High School, Champlain Valley Union High School, Charlotte Central School, Colchester High School and Middle School, Edmunds Elementary and Middle schools, Essex High School and Middle School, South Burlington High School, Winooski Middle High School and Vermont Commons School, among others.

The student performances will take place during the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, which runs June 3–7 and features free outdoor concerts alongside ticketed performances by internationally recognized artists curated by MacArthur fellow Jason Moran.

Featured collaboration includes Vermont Youth Orchestra musicians

A featured performance during the festival, “My Heart Sings: Jason Moran Plays Duke Ellington”, will include musicians from the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association jazz ensemble, according to the announcement.

The concert will also feature guest vocalist Rachel Ambaye, a South Burlington native studying with Moran at Berklee College of Music. Ambaye will join the student ensemble for a collaboration tied to one of the festival’s signature performances.

Flynn Executive Director Jay Wahl said in the announcement that bringing student musicians into the center of the festival highlights jazz as a living tradition shared across generations.

This story was created by Dave DeMille, ddemille@gannett.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Republican Gov. Phil Scott filed Thursday to seek a sixth term in office while the heads of both legislative chambers announced they will not run for reelection.

Thursday marked the deadline for candidates to get on the ballot for the August primary elections. For months, it has been unclear if Scott would run again.

“I don’t want to see anything move backwards; we need to keep pushing ahead,” Scott said.

Scott filed the necessary 500 signatures on Thursday. If he serves a sixth term, he would be the longest-serving consecutive governor in state history.

“It’s not easy work, it weighs on you, but at the end of the day, I feel the responsibility to stick this out,” Scott said.

The governor has won by larger margins each cycle. Potential Democratic challengers have waited to see whether Scott might step aside, providing a chance not to run against a popular incumbent.

Those who political observers speculated might be interested in the governor’s race included Democratic Attorney General Charity Clark and Treasurer Mike Pieciak. Both instead decided to seek reelection.

Pieciak told reporters he has experienced several personal tragedies this year and wants to continue with his office’s work. “It’s really been a year of reflection, and I think I’m excited about continuing this job that I enjoy,” Pieciak said.

Scott will face an opponent in November. Democrats Aly Richards and Amanda Janoo will face off in the August primary.

Three other Democrats, Molly Gray, Ryan McLaren, and Esther Charlestin, will face off for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and the chance to challenge incumbent Republican John Rodgers in November.

House Speaker Jill Krowinski received a standing ovation from House lawmakers as she announced she will not seek reelection, joining Senate President Phil Baruth.

“The next group of leaders will do a great job continuing on with this work. I wouldn’t be leaving if I didn’t think that we had the right people in places to do this work,” Krowinski said.

That means there will be fresh leadership in the House and Senate next legislative session.

And there is competition in the race for Congress. Republicans Gerald Malloy and Mark Coester will face off in the GOP primary to determine who will face Congresswoman Becca Balint in November.

“To deliver results for Vermont. They are tired of the constant complaining and angry rhetoric,” Malloy said.

There are at least three dozen state House and Senate races that will see fresh faces as another large contingent of lawmakers steps back.

Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Board voted 11-1 last week to reject two controversial bids from hunters to establish a season for hunting black bears with bait.

The vote comes as state wildlife officials revisit Vermont’s bear regulations in light of what state scientists say is a growing bear population and a rise in bear-human conflict in recent years.

“I think everybody in this room tonight wants a similar outcome, which is a healthy population of black bears in Vermont,” said John Austin, who leads the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s wildlife division, speaking at the May 20 board meeting.

The first petition, filed by the Vermont Bowhunters Association, called for Vermont to establish a fall baiting season similar to those in Maine in New Hampshire.

A second petition filed by hunters Kevin Lawrence and Bert Saldi echoed that request and asked regulators to extend the regular bear season in the fall and allow hunters to get two bear tags instead of one.

Right now, Vermont has two bear seasons — one in the spring and one in the fall. Hunters can pursue bears with rifles, by archery or using hounds, though the latter has a separate season.

Baiting — setting out food with the intention of enticing an animal into a particular location — is not allowed for large game species like deer, bear and moose. However, the state does allow hunters to hunt coyotes with bait, and set traps with bait for furbearing species like beaver.

Black bears have made a remarkable recovery in Vermont since the 1970s, when Vermont Fish and Wildlife estimates there were fewer than 2,000 left in the state. Today, department scientists estimate there are between 7,500 and 9,500 bears in Vermont.

Vermont’s Wildlife Management Plan says the state should aim for a population around 5,000 to avoid depleting the bears’ wild food stores.

Additionally, human-bear conflicts appear to be on the rise in Vermont and cost the Department of Fish and Wildlife roughly $1 million each year, staff say.

“We are, in effect, victims of our own success. It’s gone beyond what we ever imagined,” Austin said. “It’s a great thing, a huge opportunity, and at the same time, it has become a growing challenge.”

The Vermont Bowhunters Association’s petition says baiting bears could address these population concerns more efficiently than with conventional hunting.

“Baiting allows you to be selective,” said petitioner Kevin Lawrence, arguing it would be easier for hunters to ensure they aren’t shooting a sow with young cubs.

Lawrence further argued baiting would allow hunters to kill bears that have been habituated to humans in more urban areas, where conventional hunting would be challenging. He said the department could require hunters share GPS coordinates for where they’re baiting so the sites can be inspected by wardens.

But state bear biologist Jaclyn Comeau says the science doesn’t support baiting as an effective solution for managing the bear population.

She says human behaviors — namely, how people store their trash and food and where they live — are major drivers of the rise in bear-human conflicts Vermont has seen in recent years.

“The more opportunity they have to take advantage of those food sources, the more chance there is that it can start to change their behavior over time, and now they may be seeking out those foods, not just when their wild foods are scarce, but they’re seeking them out as a regular part of their foraging strategy,” she said.

Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife

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Roughly 100 people and at least eight environmental organizations, including some town conservation committees, filed public comments urging the department to reject bear baiting.

Bear hunters themselves appeared to be divided over the issue.

Speaking at the April 22 Fish and Wildlife Board meeting, bear hunter Butch Spear of Newbury, a former president of the Vermont Bearhound Association, urged the board to keep baiting illegal.

“It’s against the law to shoot a deer over bait,” he said. “Why do you want to make it legal to shoot a bear over bait?”

Other hunters worried baiting would tarnish their reputation among non-hunters.

Linda Capucardo of Sheffield was one of several people who voiced concern about the ethics of baiting bears.

“We’ve spent tons of time in Vermont telling people to secure bird feeders, to secure their waste, to secure everything, so that we don’t habituate bears to human food sources,” she said. “And now we’re going to give them a human food source? That’s just inviting disaster.”

Many speakers questioned the narrative that Vermont has too many bears or will for long.

Black bears are heavily dependent on beech nuts for food, and their abundance is threatened by beech leaf disease and beech bark disease. Both are growing threats to Vermont’s forests.

After rejecting the bear baiting proposals, the board voted unanimously to advance Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recommendation that the state allow hunters to purchase two bear tags each year, and to extend the fall bear hunting season into December, through deer muzzleloader season.

The board is expected to discuss other aspects of the bear regulations at its June meeting, including a potential ban on killing sows with cubs in sight and changes to the rules governing hunting bears with hounds.

Lawmakers will next get to review the proposed updates to the bear rule to make sure they comply with state law, at which point there will be further opportunities for public comment.