Cécile McLorin Salvant Vocals
Cécile McLorin
Salvant is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as, “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings.”
Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, theater, jazz, baroque, and folkloric music. Salvant is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor.
Salvant won the Thelonious Monk Competition in 2010. She has received three consecutive Grammy awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for The Window, Dreams and Daggers, and For One to Love, and was nominated for the award in 2014 for her album WomanChild.
In 2020 Salvant received the MacArthur Fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. Nonesuch Records released Ghost Song in 2022 and the highly anticipated follow up Mélusine mostly sung in French, along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl— in 2023; both albums were nominated twice for Grammy awards.
Born and raised in Miami, Florida, of a French mother and Haitian father, she started classical piano studies at the age of five, singing in a children’s choir at eight, and classical voice lessons as a teenager.
Salvant received a bachelor’s degree in French law from the Université
Pierre-Mendes France in Grenoble while also studying baroque music and jazz at the Darius Milhaud Music Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France.
Salvant’s latest work, Ogresse, is a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends genres (folk, baroque, jazz, and country). Salvant wrote the story, lyrics, and music. It is arranged by Darcy James Argue for a thirteen-piece orchestra of multi-instrumentalists. Ogresse, both a biomythography and a homage to the Erzulie (as painted by Gerard Fortune) and Sara Baartman, explores fetishism, hunger, diaspora, cycles of appropriation, lies, othering, and ecology. It is in development to become an animated feature-length film, which Salvant will direct.
Salvant makes large-scale textile drawings. Her visual art can now be found at Picture Room in Brooklyn, New York.
Glenn Zaleski Piano
Glenn Zaleski is one of the most in-demand pianists on the New York City jazz scene. Originally from Boylston, Massachusetts, Zaleski has made a name for himself playing with the likes of Ravi Coltrane, Cécile McLorin Salvant, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Yotam Silberstein, Ken Peplowski, Lage Lund, Ari Hoenig, and many more. His latest album is Solo Vol. 2, an album of standards recorded during the pandemic, and the second from his own label Stark Terrace Music.
The Question, from July 2020, was released on Sunnyside Records and features his quintet. From this album, his original “BK Bossa Nova” has nearly two million plays on Apple Music. Live at Jazz Standard (Capri 2019), features his long-standing co-led trio, Stranahan/Zaleski/Rosato, in a live set the legendary New York City club. Glenn has also released two popular albums with the same trio, including Limitless (Capri 2013) and Anticipation (Capri 2011), as well as a duo record with his brother, saxophonist Mark Zaleski (Duet Suite, 2010).
In 2011 Glenn was a semifinalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, as well as a finalist for the 2011 American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz. He attended the Brubeck Institute Fellowship program from 2005 to 2007 and later finished his undergraduate studies at the New School in 2009 and his graduate degree at New York University in 2011.
Yasushi Nakamura Bass
Yasushi Nakamura is praised for imaginative, quicksilver bass lines that deepen the groove. His blend of guitar-like precision and gut-level blues has sparked collaborations with artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hank Jones, Dave Douglas, and Steve Miller. With his charismatic stage presence and artful, hard swinging melodic touch, Nakamura is a
first-call performer capturing new audiences and fans around the world. Born in Tokyo, Nakamura moved to the United States at age nine and considers both places home. Nakamura received a bachelor’s degree in jazz performance from Berklee School of Music in 2000 and was awarded a full scholarship to the Juilliard School for his artist diploma in 2006. He credits Myron Walden as an early champion and keeps close ties to Juilliard mentors Victor Goines, Wycliffe Gordon, Carl Allen, and Ben Wolfe, all of whom maintain him in their bands.
Nakamura’s career is flourishing, with consistent engagements at premier jazz festivals including Tokyo, North Sea, Monterey, Ravinia, and venues such as Birdland, Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, the Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. A wide array of projects permits him to explore musical styles and collaborations. As an educator, Nakamura has led master classes and summer-intensive courses at the Juilliard School, New School, Koyo Conservatory, Osaka Geidai, and Savannah Swing Central.
Kyle Poole Drums
Los Angeles native Kyle Poole has lived in New York City since 2011 and continues to impress wherever his drums take him. Along with his band of fellow New York–based jazz upstarts, aptly known as Poole and the Gang, Poole has performed in New York’s most
esteemed jazz clubs, notably Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and SMOKE Jazz, which culminated in a weekly residency at Small’s Jazz Club lasting nearly three years. One of Poole’s chief missions is to expand jazz’s audience by incorporating all styles of dance music, reaching back to ragtime and bebop, while forging
ahead all the way to funk, hip-hop, and beyond. With the constant fluctuation of genre, rhythm, and harmony, Poole and the Gang connects these musical dots in a uniquely improvised fashion, while audiences worldwide are delighted to simply, “go with the flow.”
Funding for educational programs during the 2024–25 Season of SCP Jazz has been generously provided by
Dan J. Epstein, Judith Guitelman, and the Dan J. Epstein Family Foundation.
SYMPHONY CENTER PRESENTS
Jeff Alexander Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association President
Cristina Rocca Vice President for Artistic Administration
The Richard and Mary L. Gray Chair
James M. Fahey Senior Director, Programming, Symphony Center Presents
Lena Breitkreuz Artist Manager, Symphony Center Presents
Michael Lavin Assistant Director, Operations, Symphony Center Presents & Rental Events
Joseph Sherman Production Manager, Symphony Center Presents & Rental Events
