Songs We Love Program

LOVE WE SONGS

The Sharon®L. Morse

PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

Dear Patron

of the Arts

, Welcome to The Sharon® L. Morse Performing Arts Center!

Much like the building’s namesake, my grandmother, Sharon L. Morse, we love all varieties of the performing arts here. It is in her memory that I, along with my amazing team of artists and arts administrators, strive to bring many different types of the highest quality entertainment here to The Sharon.

Since opening in 2015, we have strived to establish your trust, that a show at The Sharon is a show worth seeing. Perhaps you find yourself here today to see a concert of one of your favorite musicians, or to take in the national tour of a Broadway show. Either way, we encourage you to consider trying out a new show that perhaps you haven’t heard of before, knowing that it has been intentionally curated by our team.

We welcome you to The Sharon: a place for you to see an old favorite, but also a place to discover your new favorite. I sincerely hope you enjoy the show today, and I look forward to seeing you here again soon!

See You at The Sharon, W

hitney Morse

Artistic Director

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER

Jazz at Lincoln Center is dedicated to inspiring and growing audiences for jazz. With the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, weekly national radio programs, television broadcasts, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, jazz appreciation curricula for students, music publishing, children’s concerts and classes, lectures, adult education courses, student and educator workshops, a record label, and interactive websites. Under the leadership of Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Chairman Clarence Otis, and Executive Director Greg Scholl, Jazz at Lincoln Center produces thousands of events each season in its home in New York City, Frederick P. Rose Hall, and around the world. For more information, visit jazz.org.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents touring initiative provides an affordable opportunity to present great jazz programming, featuring up-and-coming musicians who have been identified as rising stars by JALC. The initiative also allows for expansion of the mission of JALC “to entertain, enrich and expand a global community for jazz through performance, education, and advocacy.”

Songs We Love was first presented as the 2016 Season Opener at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Songs We Love is a journey through the first 50 years of jazz song. Under the musical direction of Riley Mulherkar, 3 guest vocalists will join an all-star band made up of New York’s rising stars. Combining their distinct talents, the group will sing their way through four decades of music, beginning with the early blues and jazz of the 1920s and ending in the early 1950s. Iconic singers to be explored include Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.

VUYO SOTASHE, VOCALS

Young South African jazz vocalist, Vuyo Sotashe, is gradually making his mark in the New York jazz scene. Sotashe moved to NYC in 2013 after being awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to complete a Master of Music degree at William Paterson University. Since then, he has gone on to win first prize at the very first Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival Vocal Competition in 2014, and performed on the festival’s main stage in February of 2015. More recently, he won the Audience Prize Award and placed second overall at the Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition in 2015, held at the annual Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. In the same year, he placed third in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Vocal competition, where he was the very first male vocalist ever to place in the competition’s finals. Vuyo is also the winner of the biggest music scholarship competition in South Africa, the South African Music Rights Foundation Scholarship, where he performed for the former South African President Thabo Mbeki. Vuyo Sotashe is currently performing around New York City with the noted drummer Winard Harper, whose credits include work with Betty Carter, Shirley Horn, and many other legends in jazz.

BRIANNA THOMAS, VOCALS

Born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, Brianna grew up surrounded by music. Under the guiding hand of her talented father, at the age of eight she won her first of thirteen trophies from various district and regional talent shows and was soon performing for a variety of black tie affairs and as a guest on local radio stations, eventually touring Europe with the Peoria Jazz All-Stars. Brianna is the youngest person ever to be inducted into Peoria’s African-American Hall of Fame at the age of thirteen in 1996. Brianna’s singing is deeply enriched by an understanding of the masterful voices of jazz past, including Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dianne Reeves. She has performed at the Montreux , North Sea, and Umbria Jazz Festivals and in venues ranging from the Bahamas to Geneva, Switzerland. Brianna was a resident in both the 2001 and 2002 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead programs, an international artist-in-residence program with a focus on original compositions at the Kennedy Center. Legendary trombonist Curtis Fuller hails her as “a marvelous new artist who has all it takes to reach the top of the jazz profession and music in general.”

BIOGRAPHIES

SHENEL JOHNS, VOCALS

With a voice that embodies grace and passion and a personal style that sways effortlessly from jazz to R&B to gospel, Shenel has emerged as one of the shining stars of her generation. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, Johns has been performing since she was fourteen years of age, and has developed a distinctive, eclectic style that has increasingly caught the attention of her peers and some of the industry’s top performers. Johns received a B.A. in music management from the Jackie McLean Institute at the Hartt School of Music and studied performance with such jazz legends as Rene McLean, Jimmy Greene, and Nat Reeves. She has shared the stage with music royalty including Curtis Fuller, Hank Jones, Dionne Warwick, and Sheila Jordan, and has performed and recorded with an impressive array of leaders in the field. In 2016, Johns completed a musical residency at Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha in Qatar and, several months later, honored Billie Holiday as part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s New York production of Billie and the Boys. She has also paid tribute to another of her idols, Lena Horne, at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s famed Appel Room. Most recently, Johns was the winner of the Riga Jazz Stage Competition in Riga, Latvia, and was featured in the Hartford Jazz Festival’s Ella Fitzgerald Tribute.

GABRIEL MEDD, TRUMPET

Gabriel Medd played his first gig at the age of ten, and he has been performing on his trumpet ever since. Now 23, the Iowa City native has occupied venues at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Iowa City Jazz Festival, Jazz Standard, Iridium, Chicago Jazz Showcase, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and the Blue Note. He has embraced opportunities to blend his ideas and sounds with those of other incredible musicians in the Gibson/Baldwin Grammy Jazz Ensemble, the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, and the Grammy Award-Winning Mingus Big Band.. He was included in Wynton Marsalis’ list of “The Next Generation of Jazz Greats” that appeared in JET magazine in 2011, and was selected as a semi-finalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition in 2014. Gabriel graduated with his Bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School in 2014 and completed his Master’s degree at Juilliard in 2016.

MARIEL BILDSTEN, BAND LEADER & TROMBONE

Mariel Bildsten is a trombonist, based in New York City. Mariel currently works as a bandleader and side-woman, playing in jazz big bands and small groups, as well as AfroLatin music, rock, funk, and R&B bands. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, London’s O2 Arena, and the Apollo Theater, among other venues and festivals. Mariel has also performed alongside Jennifer Hudson, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove, The Manhattan Transfer, Wycliffe Gordon, Brian Lynch, Cyrus Chestnut, and Frank Lacy. Her own groups, ranging from duo to septet, have headlined jazz festivals, played around the country, and perform regularly in New York City. Her debut quintet record Backbone (2020) received rave reviews.

LUCAS PINO, REEDS

Tenor Saxophonist Lucas Pino works frequently as a sideman for artists including Gideon van Gelder, Richard Boukas, David Lopato, Bryan Carter, Rafal Sarnecki, Nick Finzer, and Jeremy Siskind. His past performance experience also includes Dave Brubeck, Curtis Fuller, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Christian McBride, Carl Allen, Benny Green and David Sanborn. Lucas has performed in Australia, Poland, Spain, Britain, The Netherlands, Brazil, and Costa Rica, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. He has appeared at venues including The Blue Note, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, The Jazz Standard, Yoshi’s, The Jazz Kitchen, The Rex, and Chicago Symphony Hall. As a leader, he has maintained a monthly residency at Smalls with the No Net Nonet since March 2013. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, Lucas grew up singing hymns in church, and in the choir at school. He started playing saxophone at age 10, and the first music he ever listened to was jazz. As a high school junior, Lucas won the DownBeat award for Best Instrumental Soloist in 2004. He attended the Brubeck Institute from 2005-2007, where he studied closely with Dave Brubeck. Lucas finished his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Jazz Performance at The New School in 2009, and then attended Juilliard, where he received a Master of Music in 2011. Lucas’ major influences on the saxophone include Stan Getz, Lucky Thompson, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, and Chris Cheek. Compositionally, he is heavily influenced by the sound of big band, and composers including Wayne Shorter, Maria Schneider, Walt Weiskopf, and Thad Jones.

MATHIS PICARD (PIANO)

Mathis Picard is a French-Malagasy pianist, composer, producer, and bandleader who currently resides in New York City. Rooted in the tradition of live acoustic performance while incorporating the latest technology, Mathis creates his own musical style influenced by his multi-national background. Mathis, who began playing the piano at the age of 3, was immediately passionate about music’s healing quality and now focuses on sharing that passion globally. Mathis currently leads a solo project, a trio project and his orchestra, The Sound Orchestra. Mathis has had the honor of working with artists such as Ron Carter, Lillias White, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Lee Ritenour, Daniel J. Watts, DJ Kindness, Braxton Cook, Veronica Swift, Etienne Charles, and more.

MARK LEWANDOWSKI, BASS

Award winning New York City based bassist and composer Mark Lewandowski originally hails from Nottingham, England. A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London and New York’s prestigious Juilliard School, he has earned the respect of his peers and elders alike as a creative, supportive and individual sideman and bandleader. Lewandowski has also performed frequently as a member of Pulitzer Prize winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ quartet including performances in such esteemed venues and festivals as London’s Barbican Hall, Cheltenham Festival and The Institute of Peace, Washington D.C. Mark’s work as a bandleader include two releases, Waller (2017), an exploration of the music of one of the early innovators of the jazz genre, Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller, and Under One Sky (2021), comprised of exclusively original material. Lewandowski’s unique and personal compositional style is at the foreground of this album which was described by the UK’s renowned critic, John Fordham (The Guardian, Jazzwise Magazine) as ‘a sublime confection on compositional class and individual improv skill.”

TJ REDDICK, DRUMS

TJ is an American musician and educator, as well as a graduate from The Juilliard School. He currently resides in New York City, which has led to collaborations with artists including Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Chick Corea, Jon Batiste, Nicholas Payton, Alicia Olatuja, Will Downing, Mwenso and the Shakes, and many more. He has performed at many venues including Radio City Music Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Balboa Theatre, Adrienne Arsht Center, Smalls, The Blue Note, Smoke, the Marciac Jazz Festival, Belize Jazz Festival, Jacksonville Jazz festival, Jacksonville Bethel Baptist Church, Greater Refuge Temple, Mattox Revival Center, and City Tabernacle. TJ believes art shapes and gives color to the world we live in, and that art plays an integral role in building communities.