UPTOWN NIGHTS
VUYO SOTASHE & CHRIS PATTISHALL
Saturday, November 20 2021, 7:30PM Harlem Stage Gatehouse Address: 150 Convent Avenue at West 135 Street, New York, NY 10031 Phone: 212.281.9240 ext. 19 | Website: www.harlemstage.org
@harlemstage
@myharlemstage
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Photo by Wil Pierce
ABOUT THE EVENT Tonight we present jazz vocalist Vuyo Sotashe and GRAMMYnominated jazz pianist Chris Pattishall in what will be a mesmerizing and electrifying evening of music. The two share a sonic chemistry and their set ranges from the Great American Songbook to South African Xhosa hymns and more. Thank you for joining us.
ARTIST STATEMENT We’ve been performing together for six years in a variety of contexts, and have each grown tremendously through these shared experiences. Increasingly, our music focuses on the invocation of community. We use music to gather, to collectively remember and imagine. The audience is an active and essential participant. We see this as inclusive, celebratory, and healing— we’re recipients as much as the audience. We’ll be performing a broad range of music in our set, tied together by an exploration of vulnerability. We hope to collectively reimagine these songs, drawing on our wide musical interests and fully inhabiting the openness and intimacy that the duo setting allows for.
BIOGRAPHIES VUYO SOTASHE VOCALIST & COMPOSER
Vuyo Sotashe is a New York based vocalist, composer, and performer originally from South Africa. Since moving to the United states as a Fulbright Scholar, he has performed with celebrated jazz legends including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jimmy Heath, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Barry Harris, and Winard Harper, to name a few. Recently, he appeared with multi Photo by Wil Pierce GRAMMY Award winner and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as a featured artist on their 2018 Winter Tour across the United States. Sotashe has also appeared as a leader and sideman at the internationally acclaimed Montreux Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Fest, and Joy of Jazz, and Arcevia Jazz Festival. Sotashe is the recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship for Music at Joe’s Pub/Public Theater for 20182019. He collaborated and performed in Somi Kakoma’s debut theater work “Dreaming Zenzile”, which was premiered at Joe’s Pub, as well as the Apollo, and made his commercial-off-broadway debut as part of the cast in “Black Light”, created by performance artist Daniel Alexander Jones in February and October of 2018. Sotashe has gone on to premiere a new play, “Cartography” by Kaneza Schaal & Christopher Myres at the Kennedy Center in January of 2019, which will be at the New Victory Theater in January of 2020. Currently he performs as one of the fronting vocalists in the internationally touring, multi-disciplinary band collective Mwenso and the Shakes, while leading his own ensemble appearing on stages across the United States, and around the world. Sotashe continues to create, collaborate, record, and perform as an indelible creative voice both in his home country, New York City, as well as the international scene.
CHRIS PATTISHALL PIANIST & COMPOSER
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Like many of his favorite things, there is much more to Chris Pattishall than meets the eye. Most know him as a pianist with a “forthright relationship to the jazz tradition” (The New York Times) and a hard-earned endorsement from the music’s traditional establishment—Wynton Marsalis once shortlisted Pattishall among his favorite young improvisers. Pattishall has recorded extensively for Steinway’s state-of-the-art Spirio piano.
A pianist and composer working in a diverse range of music, he is a featured performer on a wide range of recordings from the GRAMMYnominated debut of drummer/vocalist Jamison Ross to the film score of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and the radical deconstructions of guitarist/composer Rafiq Bhatia’s Standards, Vol. 1. Recent performance highlights include appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall; with Bria Skonberg and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; and at the Whitney Museum in conjunction with Jason Moran’s exhibition. Pattishall is a 2019 awardee of the Aaron Copland Fund to record his original suite Fictions, based on the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. He released his debut album, Zodiac, in February 2021, a reimagining of the Zodiac Suite by pioneering pianist Mary Lou Williams.
OUR SUPPORTERS
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council. Harlem Stage’s Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
ABOUT HARLEM STAGE Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem’s cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas. For nearly 40 years our singular mission has been to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. We provide opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color, make performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduce children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts. We fulfill our mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities we serve.
Board of Directors Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell, President Jamie Cannon, Vice President Michael Young, Secretary Mark Thomas, Treasurer Neal Baer Stefany Bergson Angela Glover Blackwell
JoAnn K. Chase Patricia Cruz Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes Trevor Gale Jenette Kahn LaChanze Sapp-Gooding Tamara Tunie
Administration Staff Patricia Cruz, Artistic Director & CEO MANAGEMENT Eric Oberstein, Managing Director DEVELOPMENT Shamar Hill, Director of Development Shanté Skyers, Associate Director of Development Julia Marrero, Development Associate PROGRAMMING Carl Hancock Rux, Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence Yunie Mojica, Programming Manager MARKETING Deirdre May, Senior Director of Digital Content and Marketing Andre Padayhag, Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer BOX OFFICE Daniel Im, Box Office Manager PRODUCTION Amanda K. Ringger, Director of Production Yolanda Royster, Stage Manager Clarence Taylor, Lighting Operator Christopher Homenick, Audio Engineer Julio Collado, Audio Crew OPERATIONS Rodney Bissessar, Director of Operations Lamont Askins, Operations Assistant Acey Anderson Sr., Maintenance
ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE Ncheng LLC, Accountants/Advisors Michelle Blankenship, Principal Aaron Lam, Supervising Senior Accountant CONSULTANTS Aon/Albert G. Ruben Company (NY) Claudia Kaufman, Insurance Digital Video Services—BriGuel Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, P.C. —Lisa Davis Itelagen, IT Consultant Lutz & Carr/Chris Bellando, Accountants Madison Consulting Group, —Matt Laurence Manchester Benefits—Greg Martin Marc Millman Photography Digital Video Services —Jess Medenbach PR Canvas Public Relations & Marketing RL Stein Group—Robyn L. Stein Development Consultant The Whelan Group Incorporated —Charles Whelan USHERS Toma Carthen, Nobar Deleon, Miriam Hernandez, Chloe Wilson, Andy Garcia, Keyry Duran