KIMMEL CULTURAL CAMPUS ANNOUNCES 2023-2024 JAZZ SERIES
SPECTACULAR LINEUP INCLUDES AWARD-WINNING ARTISTS SAMARA JOY, EMMET COHEN, AND JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER WITH WYNTON MARSALIS!
PACKAGES ON SALE TODAY!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Philadelphia, PA, June 6, 2023) –– The Kimmel Cultural Campus announces its 2023-24 Jazz Series, featuring award-winning, seasoned masters of their craft, along with young, innovative voices of the future. This year’s lineup showcases the ever-evolving jazz genre and emphasizes how it continues to flourish with new generations.
The 2023-24 Jazz Series will begin on December 22 with Grammy Award-winning, chart-topping, Gen Z jazz sensation, Samara Joy, with her holiday tour; then kicks off the new year with Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis on January 21, 2024. The season continues with the Emmet Cohen Trio, led by recognized prodigy Emmet Cohen on March 14; and ten-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard on April 7, 2024.
“Each season we welcome a diverse group of artists who are moving jazz forward in innovative ways,” said Matías Tarnopolsky, president and CEO of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc. “Our lineup features both new and seasoned artists who showcase jazz's ability to evolve and speak to new generations."
Tickets
Ticket packages for the Kimmel Cultural Campus’ 2023-24 Jazz Series go on sale to the public on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Packages start at $37.00 per show. Save 10% by purchasing a 2-show package.
Tickets packages can be purchased by calling 215-893 -1999 or online at www.kimmelculturalcampus.org. In-person ticket sales can be conducted daily from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. at the Academy of Music Box Office, located at 240 S. Broad Street. See www.kimmelculturalcampus.org for more information.
Single tickets will go on sale to the public on Wednesday, July 12 at 10 a.m.
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A complete list of the 2023-24 Jazz Series programming can be found below:
Samara Joy: A Joyful Holiday Featuring The McLendon Family
Miller Theater (formerly the Merriam Theater) on the Kimmel Cultural Campus
Friday, December 22, 2023 | 7:30 p.m.
With her Grammy Award-winning and chart-topping album, Linger Awhile, 23-year-old Samara Joy makes her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Billie as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation recorded by the venerable Verve Records. Her voice, rich and velvety yet precociously refined, has already earned her fans like Anita Baker and Regina King and appearances on the TODAY Show, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS Mornings, Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, and more, in addition to millions of likes on TikTok — cementing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star. The New York Times praised the “silky-voiced rising star” for “helping jazz take a youthful turn” while NPR All Things Considered named her a “classic jazz singer from a new generation.” In February 2023, Joy took home two Grammy Awards - Best Jazz Vocal Album and the auspicious Best New Artist award.
Growing up in the Bronx, it was music of the past — the music of her parents’ childhoods, as she put it — that she listened to most. She treasures her musical lineage, which stretches back to her grandparents Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, both of whom performed with Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes, and runs through her father, who is a singer, songwriter and producer who toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Max Roach Centennial Celebration
Verizon Hall on the Kimmel Cultural Campus
Sunday, January 21, 2024 | 5:00 p.m.
Founded in 1988, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis tours the world performing a vast repertoire of music, from historic and rare compositions to commissioned works. The group’s compositions and arrangements include works by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Charles Mingus, as well as new music from the group’s unrivalled collection of world-renowned composers and arrangers.
For this special Kimmel Cultural Campus engagement, Marsalis and the Orchestra will celebrate the legacy of legendary drummer and bandleader Max Roach. Revered as one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time, Max Roach was among the first to use jazz to address racial, political and social issues of his time. The JLCO celebrates the centennial of this pioneering legend, innovative master musician and bandleader who spanned a diverse range of styles that influenced generations to follow. In 1961, after having been an influential member of the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie Quintet pioneering bebop, and performing alongside Miles Davis’ seminal “Birth of the Cool” and forming the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet, he went on to make albums with his wife, the trailblazing singer and songwriter Abbey Lincoln, going on to say in 1961 to DownBeat Magazine that he would “never again play anything” that did not “have social significance.”
Emmet Cohen (Trio)
Perelman Theater on the Kimmel Cultural Campus
Thursday, March 14, 2024 | 7:00 p.m.
"Thirty years old and one of the finest piano players to emerge in decades…” - All About Jazz
Multifaceted American jazz pianist and composer Emmet Cohen has emerged as one of his generation's pivotal figures in music and the related arts. A recognized prodigy, Cohen began Suzuki method piano instruction at age three, and his playing quickly became a mature melding of musicality, technique, and concept. DownBeat Magazine observed that his "nimble touch, measured stride and warm harmonic vocabulary indicate he's above any convoluted technical showmanship." In the same spirit, Cohen himself has noted that playing jazz is "about communicating the deepest levels of humanity and individuality; it's essentially about connections," both among musicians and with audiences. He leads his namesake ensemble, the "Emmet Cohen Trio," is a vibrant solo performer, and is in constant demand as a sideman. Possessing a fluid technique, an innovative tonal palette, and an extensive repertoire, Cohen plays with the command of a seasoned veteran and the passion of an artist fully devoted to his medium.
Cohen is committed to the intergenerational transfer of artistic knowledge, history, and traditions. His signature professional undertaking is the Masters Legacy Series, a celebratory set of recordings and interviews honoring legendary jazz musicians. He serves as both producer and pianist for each album in the series. The goal of this landmark, ongoing project is to provide musicians of multiple generations a forum to transfer the unwritten folklore that is America's unique musical idiom. Cohen has observed that playing jazz "is enriched immeasurably by connecting and studying with jazz masters, forging backward to the very creation of the art form." Volume one of the Masters Legacy Series features drummer Jimmy Cobb, and volume two spotlights bassist Ron Carter. Future Masters Legacy Series releases will include Cohen's recordings with Benny Golson, Tootie Heath, and George Coleman.
Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Verizon Hall on the Kimmel Cultural Campus
Sunday, April 7, 2024 | 5:00 p.m.
Two-time Oscar nominee and six-time Grammy winner trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard has been a consistent artistic force making powerful musical statements concerning pivotal moments in American culture–past and present. Blanchard is celebrated not only for his albums and live performances but also for creating strong backdrops to human stories, from his expansive scores for Spike Lee films—such as his Oscar-nominated BlacKkKlansman (2018) score—to his opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which marked the first time an opera written by a Black composer or a Black librettist had been staged at the Met in the organization’s 138-year history.
This extraordinary performance features musicians and operatic vocalists focusing on music from Terence Blanchard's groundbreaking opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on journalist and author Charles M. Blow's powerful memoir chronicling his early life in rural Louisiana. With a libretto written by NAACP Image Award-winning actress, director, and screenwriter Kasi Lemmons, Fire Shut Up in My Bones premiered at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2019 and opened the 2021-22 season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in September 2021, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The recording of those performances won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. The New York Times labeled Blanchard's opera "inspiring," "subtly powerful" and "a bold affecting adaptation of Charles Blow's work."
Blow’s candid 2014 autobiography recounts his struggles to define his manhood, sexuality, and personal values in the rural South of the 1970s, and his attempts to break free from the repression imposed upon him by his family, his church, and his college life. The rage and violence that were kindled within him and his desire for revenge inspired the book and opera title, adapted from the Book of Jeremiah: “His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”
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KIMMEL CULTURAL CAMPUS
Located in the heart of Center City, Philadelphia, our mission is to engage the region's diverse communities with art through performance and education. Our Cultural Campus serves more than 1-million guests per year and includes Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, and SEI Innovation Studio), the Academy of Music, and the Miller Theater (formerly the Merriam Theater) – representing more than 160 years of rich history for the performing arts along Philadelphia's Avenue of the Arts. We are home to The Philadelphia Orchestra and esteemed Resident Companies: Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia Ballet, PHILADANCO, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Curtis Institute of Music. With nearly 9,000 seats per night, we are the region's most impactful performing arts center, and the second largest in the country. Our Cultural Campus serves as a preeminent and inclusive place to enjoy exceptional experiences that reflect the spirit of our region by cultivating a creative and socially responsible environment where our community shares experiences that are delivered with pride, integrity, and respect. As a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization, we collaborate on, present, and produce a broad range of relevant and meaningful events, we serve as an active gathering space for social and community events, we educate the region's young people through access to quality arts experiences, and we provide support to artists in the creation of new work. Read Kimmel Cultural Campus' vision statement, world view, and mission statement here. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and how it encompasses our mission, coworkers, and programs here.
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For a PDF version of this press release, click here.