July 28, 2026
Performance launches a new chapter for Tucson Meet Yourself as the festival reimagines the visitor experience through its partnership with the Smithsonian and the Fox Tucson Theatre.
TUCSON, AZ–Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rissi Palmer, whose groundbreaking career has helped broaden the conversation about Black artists’ contributions to country music, will perform a free public concert at the Fox Tucson Theatre on Friday, Aug. 28, as part of Tucson Meet Yourself’s partnership with the Smithsonian’s “Of the People” initiative commemorating America’s 250th anniversary.
Palmer’s concert serves as an early celebration of the 2026 Tucson Meet Yourself festival and reflects this year’s theme of honoring the people, traditions, and cultural knowledge that shape communities.
For more than five decades, Tucson Meet Yourself has celebrated the cultures, foods, music, arts, and traditions of Southern Arizona. This year marks an important evolution for the festival through its collaboration with the Smithsonian, which is working with community festivals across the country as part of the national “Of the People” initiative.
The partnership is helping inspire a thoughtful redesign of the festival footprint. Rather than simply adding more attractions, the 2026 festival emphasizes deeper engagement, meaningful conversations, and opportunities for visitors to connect directly with artists, cooks, musicians, tradition bearers, and neighbors.
Among the festival’s new features is the Of the People Neighborhood, a gathering space designed to encourage storytelling, demonstrations, dialogue, and shared cultural experiences. Visitors will also experience redesigned themed villages, expanded gathering spaces, and new opportunities to slow down, explore, and engage with the people whose traditions define our region.
“Rissi Palmer’s work reflects exactly what Tucson Meet Yourself has celebrated for more than 50 years—that culture belongs to everyone, and every community has stories worth sharing,” said Maribel Alvarez, senior advisor of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, the organization that creates the festival every year. “Her visit launches an exciting season for Tucson Meet Yourself as we partner with the Smithsonian to create new spaces where people can listen, learn, and connect across cultures.”
Palmer has earned national recognition for expanding the visibility of Black artists in country music. One of the first Black women in decades to chart on country radio, she is also the host of Color Me Country on Apple Music show, where she highlights artists whose contributions to Country music have gone unrecognized.
Rissi will also be a special guest on KXCI’s Soul Stories which will air on Saturday, Aug 29, extending the conversation on air with host Tyina Steptoe. Rissi’s Tucson residency and concert invite audiences to experience music not only as entertainment, but as an expression of history, identity, and community.
The free concert is presented in partnership with the Fox Tucson Theatre and serves as a preview of the 2026 Tucson Meet Yourself festival, taking place Oct. 16–18 in downtown Tucson. The festival remains free and open to the public.
For concert information, visit the Fox Tucson Theatre website.
To learn more about Tucson Meet Yourself and the 2026 festival, visit TucsonMeetYourself.org.
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Tucson Meet Yourself is produced by the Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA), an affiliate non-profit organization of the University of Arizona, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. We are the designated Folk Arts Partner of the Arizona Commission on the Arts with the support of the National Endowment of the Arts. Its mission is to build more equitable and vibrant communities by celebrating the everyday expressions of culture, heritage, and diversity rooted in the Greater Southwest and U.S. Mexico Border Corridor. Nationally, SFA amplifies models and methods of meaningful cultural work that center traditional knowledge, social equity, and collaboration.