Champaign, IL – BÉLA FLECK & THE FLECKTONES: JINGLE ALL THE WAY feat. Victor Wooten, Roy “Future Man” Wooten & Howard Levy with special guests Jeff Coffin & Alash
Multiple Grammy winning artist Béla Fleck & The Flecktones will perform a special holiday show at the historic Virginia Theatre, 203 West Park Avenue, Champaign, Illinois, 61820, on Monday, December 1, 2025, at 7:30 P.M. $49.50-$89.50 reserved seating tickets (additional per-ticket processing fees apply) go on sale at 9:00 A.M. (CDT) Friday, July 18, 2025, at the Virginia Theatre Box Office, online at thevirginia.org, or charge by phone at 217-356-9063. Presented by True Endeavors.
Banjoist Béla Fleck, harmonica and keyboardist Howard Levy, bassist Victor Wooten, and percussionist / drumitarist Roy “Future Man” Wooten have been creating some of the most forward-thinking music throughout their remarkable careers. Drawing from a vast array of genres – from classical and jazz to bluegrass, African music, electric blues, and Eastern European folk – their sound is impossible to define. It’s a unique musical language forged by the union of four brilliant minds, each contributing something distinct to the whole. Simply put, it is The Flecktones: music that only emerges when these four musicians come together.
This winter Béla Fleck & The Flecktones return to bring you Jingle All the Way, a reunion tour featuring the group’s beloved tunes – along with reinvented, jazz-infused holiday classics from their GRAMMY-winning album by the same name. Performing this music together for the first time in over 15+ years, the band reunites for a uniquely unforgettable evening as founding members Fleck, Wooten, Wooten, & Levy take the stage alongside former Flecktones bandmate and saxophonist, Jeff Coffin, and Tuvan throat singing ensemble, Alash – all of whom appeared on the studio album.
Hitting #1 on the Top Contemporary Jazz chart and earning the 2009 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album, Jingle All the Way is a playful and innovative take on often cliché holiday tunes – whether it’s “The Twelve Days of Christmas” performed in 12 different keys and 12 different time signatures over the course of the tune, or a medley of five Christmas tunes being played together, simultaneously. “Christmas music is inside everyone’s DNA,” says Fleck. “Jingle All the Way is an open doorway for listeners to understand the Flecktones’ music.”
For tickets: thevirginia.org
For interview requests, please call 217-819-3936 or email mitch.marlow@champaignparks.org.
About The Flecktones
Banjoist Béla Fleck, harmonica and keyboardist Howard Levy, bassist Victor Wooten, and percussionist / drumitarist Roy “Future Man” Wooten have been creating some of the most forward-thinking music throughout their remarkable careers. Drawing from a vast array of genres – from classical and jazz to bluegrass, African music, electric blues, and Eastern European folk – their sound is impossible to define. It’s a unique musical language forged by the union of four brilliant minds, each contributing something distinct to the whole. Simply put, it is The Flecktones: music that only emerges when these four musicians come together.
“All the different things I do come together to make a new ‘hybrid’ Béla,” Fleck says. “Everyone else in the group is doing the same things, collaborating with others, exploring a variety of ideas. So when we come together, it’s like taking all of our separate ‘soups’ and throwing them into one big pot. The result is something incredibly diverse.”
Fleck first united the band in 1988 for a performance on PBS’ Lonesome Pine Special, but the connection between the four musicians was immediate and deep. Their bond was built on a shared commitment to pushing the boundaries of music and creativity. Three groundbreaking albums and countless performances followed, but in late 1992, Levy decided to step away.
“I wanted to pursue other things,” Levy explains. “We were playing over 150 shows a year, and that’s a lot of focus on one project. I’ve never done anything that intensely before or since.” The Flecktones continued as a trio, bringing in a rotating cast of special guests, before saxophonist Jeff Coffin joined the ensemble. The band’s acclaim continued to grow, with five Grammy Awards and a global fanbase to show for it.
By 2008, however, the band found itself at a crossroads, embarking on a temporary hiatus. Fleck, Coffin, and the rest of the group were pursuing solo projects, but the pull of the Flecktones was strong. As Future Man describes, the “paintbrushes of fate” intervened when Coffin was invited to join Dave Matthews Band after the death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Fleck encouraged him to take the opportunity, believing it would breathe new life into both DMB and the Flecktones.
“We were all ready for something different to happen,” Fleck says. “We’d been in a kind of holding pattern. Having the same lineup for so long had made things feel almost ‘normal,’ and we were all drifting into other projects for new inspiration. The time off was necessary, but we all knew we’d be coming back.”
Each band member had been pursuing their own artistic ventures. Fleck collaborated with world-renowned musicians like Chick Corea, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Meyer, and explored African music in his acclaimed Throw Down Your Heart project. Victor Wooten’s solo tours, clinics, and recordings, including the SMV project with Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller, continued to raise his profile. Future Man focused on his innovative Black Mozart project and the development of new instruments. Despite these individual pursuits, all four musicians felt the pull of the Flecktones.
In 2009, they reunited for a tour that spanned the US and Europe, with Levy back on board. “It felt just like when we first started playing together,” Wooten says. “Just with a lot less hair.” Following the tour, the four musicians felt inspired to continue exploring the band’s possibilities, a sense of unfinished business lingering from when Levy had first left.
For Fleck, Levy’s return was key to fulfilling the original vision of the Flecktones: “Each of us reinventing our instruments, each of us creating something new with every note. The return of Howard gave us a chance to pick up where we left off, pushing further into that vision.”
The return of the original lineup gave many fans the chance to witness a version of the band they might have missed, especially those who discovered the Flecktones during the Jeff Coffin era. Now, for the first time ever, Coffin takes the stage with the original four – alongside Tuvan throat singing ensemble, Alash – to perform the group’s GRAMMY-winning holiday album, Jingle All the Way, for a reunion tour this winter.
“It’s like discovering a different version of a legendary band,” Future Man says, likening the reunion to an audience experiencing an iconic group for the first time.
About Béla Fleck
Just in case you aren’t familiar with Béla Fleck, there are many who say he’s the premiere banjo player in the world. Others claim that Fleck has virtually reinvented the image and the sound of the banjo through a remarkable performing and recording career that has taken him all over the musical map and on a range of solo projects and collaborations. If you are familiar with Fleck, you know that he just loves to play the banjo, and put it into unique settings.
A nineteen-time Grammy Award-winner, Fleck has the virtuosic, jazz-to-classical ingenuity of an iconic instrumentalist and composer with bluegrass roots. For over 30 years, he has led Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, the groundbreaking quartet inspired by jazz, funk, bluegrass and beyond. From writing three banjo concertos for full symphony orchestra to exploring the banjo’s African roots with the award-winning 2009 documentary Throw Down Your Heart, many tout that Béla Fleck is the world’s premier banjo player. As Jon Pareles wrote for The New York Times, “That’s a lot of territory for five strings.”
Collaborators include Abigail Washburn, the Brooklyn Rider String Quartet, Chris Thile, The Blind Boys of Alabama, McCoy Tyner, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, and Rakesh Chaurasia (their latest album As We Speak won two Grammys in 2024). Fleck’s album Rhapsody in Blue was released February 12, 2024 on the centennial of the work’s premiere in New York City, and he debuted it at Carnegie Hall with orchestra in May. His Grammy-winning project My Bluegrass Heart, is named in honor of his friend, mentor and hero Chick Corea (My Spanish Heart). Béla and Chick toured for many years as a duo and released three acclaimed albums, including their latest and final duo project, Remembrance (2024), which won the 2025 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
About the Guests Artists
Jeff Coffin
Jeff Coffin is a saxophonist and composer who has earned international acclaim for his work with Dave Matthews Band and Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, as well as his 23+ solo projects. Coffin’s approach to the saxophone is marked by a fearless sense of exploration, fusing elements of jazz, funk, world music, and rock into a style that is uniquely his own.
A 3x Grammy Award winner, Coffin has toured the world, captivating audiences with his powerful, emotive playing. In addition to his work as a performer, Coffin is deeply committed to music education, teaching at Vanderbilt University and presenting well over 300 workshops and clinics around the globe. He is also the founder of the independent record label Ear Up Records and co-founder of AfricaNashville – which promotes cross cultural relationships between celebrated African and American artists in Nashville, TN. Coffin’s passion for sharing knowledge has made him a respected mentor to aspiring musicians everywhere.
On October 19, 2024, Dave Matthews Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – Jeff is one of a handful of musicians to attain this incredible musical honor! Jeff is a Yamaha Performing Artist & Clinician, a Boston Sax Shop Ambassador, & a JodyJazz Artist.
Alash
Alash are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. What distinguishes this group from earlier generations of Tuvan throat singers is the subtle infusion of modern influences into their traditional music. One can find complex harmonies, western instruments, and contemporary song forms in Alash’s music, but its overall sound and spirit remain decidedly Tuvan.
Trained in traditional Tuvan music since childhood, the Alash musicians studied at Kyzyl Arts College just as Tuva was beginning to open up to the West. They formed a traditional ensemble and won multiple awards for traditional throat singing in international xöömei competitions, both as an ensemble and as individuals. Alash first toured the U.S. under the sponsorship of the OpenWorld Leadership program of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then they have returned many times, to the delight of American audiences. The Washington Post described their music as “utterly stunning,” quipping that after the performance “audience members picked their jaws up off the floor.”
Alash appeared as guest artists on Béla Fleck & the Flecktones’ Grammy-winning holiday album Jingle All the Way (2008), and have collaborated with Fifth House Ensemble, beatboxer Shodekeh, and more.
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