Current MSM Jazz Voice student Anouk Chemla (MM ’28) and Joie Bianco, who studied at MSM in 2025–26, are among the eleven semifinalists in the Herbie Hancock Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition competition taking place Oct 10 and 11 in Paris. Hundreds of outstanding young jazz vocalists from all over the world submitted applications.
The semifinalists will perform on October 10 before a judging panel of internationally acclaimed jazz vocalists including Patti Austin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, former MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Gretchen Parlato, and Gregory Porter. Each semifinalist will perform for 15 minutes, presenting three songs, including one non-jazz work, accompanied by a stellar rhythm section featuring Carmen Staaf on piano, Ben Williams on bass and MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Kendrick Scott on drums.
Three finalists will be selected and compete on October 11 for more than $100,000 in scholarships and prizes.
Learn more here.
MSM alumnus Bernie Williams (BM ’16), who is also a MSM Board of Trustees member, will be joining the band of the Broadway production of Buona Vista Social Club this fall for six weeks from Oct. 22 to Nov. 29. The Latin Grammy–nominated guitarist and Yankee legend will perform alongside José Iglesias at the Schoenfeld Theatre.
“I am excited about the opportunity to join Buena Vista Social Club because the music was part of my childhood growing up,” says Bernie.
The American Piano Awards has named five finalists for its 2027 jazz competition, including pianist Brahm Sasner (BM ’26), an MSM alumnus who studied Jazz Piano with Ted Rosenthal (BM ’81, MM ’83). The finalists will compete in April 2027 for the Cole Porter Fellowship and more than $200,000 in prizes and career support.
Awarded every four years, the Cole Porter Fellowship is one of the most significant honors available to an emerging American jazz pianist. Each finalist will receive $25,000, and the winner will receive a prize package valued at more than $200,000. Past winners and finalists include Emmet Cohen (MM ’14), Sullivan Fortner (MM ’10), Aaron Diehl, Kris Bowers, and Isaiah J. Thompson.
Based in New York City, Brahm Sasner is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. He has performed throughout the United States and internationally, including appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club. He is a recipient of awards from YoungArts and the Rubato International Piano Competition.
MSM alumnus Herbie Hancock (’61, HonDMA ’23) is the curator of the Fulbright Chicago International Jazz Day Celebration taking place on Thursday, April 30. One of the featured performers is MSM Jazz Voice alumna Martina Barta (MM ’23) who is representing her home country, the Czech Republic. The Chicago Chapter of the Fulbright Association is hosting this event in partnership with the Consulate Generals of the Czech Republic, Brazil, Poland, and Switzerland to celebrate renowned international jazz performers.
The performances and reception will take place at Roosevelt University in the Auditorium Building’s Fainman Lounge.
Click here to learn more about Martina. Click here for additional event details.
MSM Jazz Piano faculty member Ted Rosenthal (BM ’81, MM ’83) will release the latest installment of his Trios in 4 Acts tetralogy, this one entitled The Good Old Days (TMR Music) on May 1. Leading two different trios, he puts a contemporary twist on early jazz styles. The late, great clarinetist Ken Peplowski additionally appears on two of the album’s tracks.
Click here to learn more about Ted, his other albums, and upcoming performances.
On Sunday, Oct 12 from 4 to 5:30 PM in Washington Heights, MSM Jazz Composition alumna and guitarist Jhoely Garay (MM ’23) will lead her Viva La Tierra ensemble on the lawn at the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters location in Fort Tryon Park as a NYC Parks Conservancy gardener officially inaugurates the Fort Tryon Park’s “Great Ginkgo” — a large, aged tree located on the lawn — as one of NYC Parks’ celebrated great trees.
The program will consist entirely of Jhoely’s large ensemble compositions, and the group contains MSM affiliates Steve Wilson (former faculty), Reed 1; Brandon Choi (MM ’22), Trumpet 1; Keegan Riley (MM ’18), Trumpet 2; and Jenny Xu (MM ’19), Piano.
Jhoely is the recipient of five Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation awards and a 2024 ACF | create award from the American Composers Forum. She was also a Stanford Jazz Mentors Fellow from 2022-2023. She has also served as a guest composer, arranger and conductor of the NYO Jazz Orchestra in the U.S., the Berlin Youth Jazz Orchestra in Germany, and the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra in Mexico.
Click here for more information about Jhoely.
Click here for more information about the concert (free), located at the MET Cloisters.
MSM alumnus and former Yankee Bernie Williams (BM ‘16) (in photo on left) and MSM alumnus tenor Jonathan Tetelman (on right) will be performing at Carnegie Hall on January 13 along with violinist Katia Reguero (in middle), who is married to the Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor. (She played “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a game at Citi Field last month.)
Writes The New York Times: “Williams said the program would be ‘a mix of things that I might be more comfortable with, popular-slash-jazz music.’ Tetelman used the word ‘eclectic.’” Read the full article here.
The concert at Carnegie Hall is the brainchild of Adam Unger, who had met Williams when Unger was a 14-year-old ball boy with the Yankees. Unger later played for the Yankees’ team in the Gulf Coast League, then became an opera singer and is now a sports lawyer.
Luís Perdomo (BM ’97) was recently appointed Associate Professor of Jazz Piano at Oberlin College and Conservatory (Fall 2025). For the past four years, he has been Associate Professor of Ensembles and Jazz Piano at Berklee College of Music. He is also Adjunct Faculty at Queens College.
Luís won a 2024 Grammy Award for “Best Latin Jazz Album,” El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2 (Miel Music, 2023), a duo project with alto saxophonist and MSM alumnus Miguel Zenón (MM ’01).
Learn more about Luís here.
Learn more about Luís’s appointment here.
The New York Philharmonic, conducted by Anthony Parnther, will perform the arrangements by composer and arranger Darcy James Argue on September 25 during the opening gala of the NY Philharmonic 2025–26 season.
The featured artist at the event, Cecile McLorin Salvant, will sing Mr. Argue’s orchestral arrangements of Being Alive by Stephen Sondheim, Barbara Song by Brecht and Weill, and With Every Breath I Take by Coleman and Zippel.
Learn more and purchase tickets here.
Pianist Phil Markowitz and violinist Zach Brock are releasing a new album on October 3 entitled Stratus (Double Moon records), joined on the recording by Finnish jazz standouts Jaska Lukkarinen (a former MSM graduate exchange student from the Sibelius Academy who studied with Phil Markowitz) and Ville Herrala.
The album was recorded in Sipoo, Finland, and, say the artists, builds on their previous recording Perpetuity, and “blends lyrical improvisation, intricate composition, and intuitive interplay into a cohesive, deeply expressive whole. From lush ballads to dynamic rhythmic journeys, Stratus showcases the quartet’s chamber-like sensitivity and jazz-rooted spontaneity. A rich, genre-blurring project, Stratus is both intimate and expansive an exploration of sound grounded in trust, nuance, and shared vision.”
Learn more about the recording Stratus here. Learn more about Phil Markowitz here.
The 48th annual DownBeat Student Music Awards, presented by DownBeat magazine, are considered the most prestigious awards in jazz education. MSM student winners this year are:
Jazz soloist — Undergraduate College Outstanding Performance: Simon Comté (BM ‘27), tenor and soprano saxophone
Small Jazz Combo — Graduate College: When KC Meets Simon, coached by Jaleel Shaw (MM ‘02)
Outstanding Soloists: Chet Carlson (BM ‘27) double bass, Simon Compté (BM ‘27), tenor saxophone
Full list of winners here.
Alto-saxophonist, composer, and band leader Jaleel Shaw (MM ‘02) has released his first album in 13 years, called Painter of the Invisible (Changu Records), featuring pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Ben Street, drummer Joe Dyson and guitarist Lage Lund. Vibraphonist Sasha Berliner guests on “Gina’s Ascent.”
“Painter Of The Invisible is a beast of beautiful storytelling that’s well worth the wait,” says DownBeat magazine.
JazzTimes writes “(Jaleel Shaw) channels personal truths and rails against erasure… The album finds him mining the legacy of Black history: personal and collective, spoken and unspoken. From “Contemplation” to “Baldwin’s Blues” to “Invisible Man,” it’s a work rooted in inheritance, inquiry, grief and gratitude — a defiant act of remembrance.”
Read the article here.
“Ted and Lesley Rosenthal use music and its varied platforms as a bridge in society,” writes Elise Linscott in the feature article on the two musicians in the August edition of Berkshire Magazine, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love—and music, according to Ted and Lesley Rosenthal,” she writes. Read the full Berkshire Magazine article here.
Ted Rosenthal’s trio recently performed at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox, Massachusetts alongside MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Jon Faddis along with trumpeter Randy Brecker. His trio’s latest album The Ted Rosenthal Songbook came out in June, and is available here.
Lesley Rosenthal serves as chief operating officer and corporate secretary at the Juilliard School and was previously the executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Jon Faddis along with trumpeter Randy Brecker share the stage at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall (in photo above) in Lenox, Massachusetts on July 20, along with MSM alumnus Benny Benack III (BM ‘13, MM ‘15) and Bria Skonberg – and with the trio of MSM alumnus and faculty member Ted Rosenthal (BM ’81, MM ’83).
On the program will be the music of trumpet legends Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and others.
In addition, the concert will feature the vocals of Benack and Skonberg who have toured together with Jazz at Lincoln Center, and follow up here on last September’s sold-out Linde Center performance at Tanglewood of Rosenthal’s Bernstein & Bop: A Saxophone Colossus.
More information and tickets can be found here.
The acclaimed composer, conductor, and saxophonist Jim Saltzman has been appointed Dean of Jazz Arts at MSM, succeeding Ingrid Jensen who has led MSM Jazz Arts since July 2020 (Ms. Jensen will remain on the MSM faculty). He will assume the role effective July 1, 2025.
Hailed by the Boston Globe as a “postmodern jazz saxophonist [who] plays with passion and intensity” and by All Music as “a force to be reckoned with,” Dr. Saltzman has taught at MSM for 14 years (starting on the Precollege faculty in 2011 and joining the Jazz Arts faculty in 2015).
“A superb teacher with a durable track record on the MSM Jazz Arts faculty and an artist whose impressive musicianship and inventiveness continue to inspire, Jim will provide a smooth transition into a new era of Jazz Arts at Manhattan School of Music, one that builds on a learning environment characterized by generosity of spirit and artistic excellence,” says MSM President James Gandre.
Read the full news release here.
The jazz ensemble Kollage from Manhattan School of Music won “Best Billie Holiday Arrangement” in the 2025 Keep an Eye International Jazz Awards hosted by the Conservatorium von Amsterdam on April 16.
The MSM students forming Kollage are, from left to right in photo: Shogo Ellefson (BM ‘25), double bass; Sarahfina Osei Nopper (MM ‘26), vocals; Cameron Sewell-Snyder (MM ‘25), saxophone; Stone Cornelius (BM ‘25), percussion; and Olivier van Niekerk (MM ‘25), guitar.
The annual competition brings together outstanding young musicians from leading music institutions, this year showcasing Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain), Jazz Performance Programme NTNU (Trondheim, Norway), Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA), Manhattan School of Music (New York, USA), and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
The theme of this 15th edition was ’Celebrating Billie Holiday 110 years’; all bands arranged and performed their own version of one out of 10 selected compositions made famous by the American jazz vocalist and composer.
More information on the winners can be found here.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has named MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Caroline Davis to its 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows in Music Composition. A composer, saxophonist, and educator, Caroline Davis lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is an active leader and sidewoman on the national jazz scene.
Chosen through a rigorous application and peer review process from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants, the Guggenheim Fellows Class of 2025 was tapped based on both prior career achievement and exceptional promise. As established in 1925 by founder Senator Simon Guggenheim, each Fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.”
Since its establishment, the Guggenheim Foundation has granted over $400 million in Fellowships to more than 19,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors. Recognizing a broad range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program.
Learn more about the 2025 Fellows here. Learn more about Caroline Davis here.
“I’m very pleased to announce that my arranging debut at Carnegie Hall last month, in a concert featuring Cécile McLorin Salvant with The Knights, is included in The New York Times’ “Classical Music Our Critics Can’t Stop Thinking About” roundup for March,” says Darcy James Argue.
Writes Seth Colter Walls in the New York Times about the concert: “Hopefully a studio recording session is in the works. For now, we have a scaled-back version of Argue’s new arrangement of Sophisticated Lady, performed by Salvant with the Metropole Orkest for Dutch television earlier this year. In the closing seconds, the piano part nods to an iconic reading of another Ellington tune, In a Sentimental Mood (which Ellington famously recorded with John Coltrane). At Carnegie, I exhaled with real delight as that quotation echoed throughout the auditorium.”
Watch the video with arrangement and conducted by Darcy James Argue here. Read The New York Times article here.
Jason Moran (BM ‘97) will be featured at a special evening at the Apollo theater in Harlem of visuals and music celebrating Jazz legend Duke Ellington and the work of iconic photographer Gordon Parks.
This one-night-only concert on the legendary Apollo stages will include rare images of Duke Ellington from the Gordon Parks collection. Jason Moran’s music reimagines Ellington’s groundbreaking compositions in this exceptional celebration of the composer’s enduring 125 year legacy.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit this link.
The all-female jazz ensemble Artemis —that features MSM Dean of Jazz Arts Ingrid Jensen and MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Nicole Glover —held a residency at the prestigious Village Vanguard jazz club in New York during the week of March 3–9 to launch their new recording. Last fall, the group topped Downbeat magazine’s reader’s poll as jazz group of the year for the second year in a row.
On March 3, the band released its third album, “Arboresque,” which “captures both the hard-bop strut of the most beloved 1960s recordings by its storied label, Blue Note Records, as well as Artemis’s own fresh take on jazz tradition,” writes The New York Times.
The group was formed by pianist Renee Rosnes in 2016, featuring the trumpeter Ingrid Jensen — who named the group for the Greek goddess of the hunt and wilderness — the drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, the bassist Linda May Han Oh, the clarinetist Anat Cohen, the saxophonist Melissa Aldana, and the singer Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Performing at the Village Vanguard is the current ensemble line-up Allison Miller, Noriko Ueda, MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Nicole Glover, Ingrid Jensen, and Renee Rosnes.
A profile of the ensemble is featured in The New York Times here.
In January and February, MSM Jazz Arts Faculty member Darcy James Argue debuts as the new Composer in Residence for the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, and conducting for the Metropole Orkest. These projects each involve arrangements he has written to feature two of his favorite musicians: vibraphonist Warren Wolf (in photo on left) and vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant (in photo on right).The arrangements for Salvant will also receive their US premiere at Carnegie Hall in March, in a concert with The Knights.
The concert dates are:
GRAND VIBES: WARREN WOLF, DARCY JAMES ARGUE, FRANKFURT RADIO BIG BAND Jan. 23: DARMSTADT – Centralstation Jan. 24: FRANKFURT – hr-Sendesaal
CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT, DARCY JAMES ARGUE, METROPOLE ORKEST Feb. 3: GRONINGEN – SPOT Feb. 4: UTRECHT – TivoliVredenburg Feb. 5: – AMSTERDAM – Het Concertgebouw Feb. 7: EINDHOVEN – Muziekgebouw
CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT & THE KNIGHTS Orchestral arrangements by DARCY JAMES ARGUE Mar. 27: NYC – Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium
At the Nobel festivities in 1993, Swedish-born soprano saxophonist and composer Anders Paulsson (MM ‘86) performed for Nelson Mandela when he received the Nobel Peace Prize; Anders consequently composed the 22-minute-long Celebration Suite to celebrate 20 years of democracy in South Africa. The composition, which had its world premiere in 2013, was a commission for the MIAGI (Music is a Great Investment) Orchestra, a non-profit educational youth orchestra based in South Africa, where Anders was Composer-in-Residence.
This past summer, MIAGI performed Celebration Suite to mark the 30-year anniversary of democracy in South Africa, in a series of concerts in Germany with Anders Paulsson featured on solo soprano saxophone. The concerts took place at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and the Konzerthaus Berlin, with Chevonne Plaatjies conducting.
Click here to learn more about Anders. Click here to learn more about the MIAGI Orchestra.
Alumna jazz trumpeter Kellin Hanas (BM ’24) performed at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wisconsin with the Carnegie Hall Ensemble as part of Michael Feinstein’s performance on Oct. 17.
The concert honored the history of big band and jazz music, Carnegie Hall, and the legacy of Tony Bennett, with a performance of Bennett’s iconic songs interpreted by Feinstein and the Carnegie Hall Ensemble.
In photo above: After the concert, Kellin met with MSM President James Gandre and another alumna, Nadje Noordhuis—who was recently appointed to the faculty at Lawrence University in Appleton— along with members of her trumpet studio.
Kellin Hanas was the student speaker at MSM Commencement 2024.
Read our interview with Kellin Hanas here.
Jazz trumpeter and rising star, MSM alumnus Jonathan Dely (MM ‘17) recently completed a feature tour in the American northwest where he headlined Alberta Bair Theater in Billings, Montana and The Argyros in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Jonathan formed his band while a student at Manhattan School of Music; his recent credits include performing at Lincoln Center, SFJAZZ, and having starring role in the 2023 film Goodbye Jonathan’s Soul directed by legendary filmmaker Bob Giraldi who captured the story that has animated Dely’s career: turning down a lucrative career on Wall Street to become a musical artist.
Learn more about Jonathan Dely here.
Jazz trumpeter and MSM alumna Nadje Noordhuis (MM ’05) has been appointed Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, a tenure-track position. She regularly tours with the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Anat Cohen Tentet, and Matt Wilson’s Honey and Salt, among other acclaimed ensembles.
Prior to her appointment at Lawrence University, Noordhuis taught at Manhattan School of Music Precollege, along with Hunter College, Berklee College of Music, and Sydney Conservatorium. She also manages both the Laurie Frink Career Grant and the Laurie Frink Brass Summit, whose namesake mentored Noordhuis as a student at MSM and into her career.
Learn more about Nadje here.
MSM Jazz voice alumna Motswedi Modiba (MM ’24) is performing with Academy Award- and Grammy-winning composer Hans Zimmer during his Hans Zimmer Live tour across the United States and Canada in September and October 2024.
Motswedi is part of this 20-stop tour, which features works from Zimmer’s most well-known scores, including Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, Interstellar, The Lion King, The Last Samurai, Dune, and more!
While at MSM, Motswedi studied with Jean Baylor and was a Hugh Masekela Scholar.
More about the tour here.
Critically acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Ted Rosenthal presents “Rhapsody in Gershwin” with his trio on Sept 26, at 7:30 PM at Birdland Jazz Club in NYC, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue on Gershwin’s birthday.
The Ted Rosenthal Trio is: Ted Rosenthal – Piano Martin Wind – Bass Tim Horner – Drums
More information and tickets here. More about Ted Rosenthal here.
The trio of Slovakian-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer Alan Bartuš (MM ‘25)—who studies at MSM with Jeremy Manasia— was one of two groups opening for jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding at Alice Tully Hall on Sept 22.
The performance was Alan’s US concert debut. In 2023, he was named semifinalist of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition.
Learn more about Alan Bartuš here.
MSM Jazz Arts alumna, singer Courtney Cutchins (MM ’16), will release her album Grunge to Grace (Laseryn Music, 2024) on October 18. The album’s concept is a meld of Cutchins’s own compositions with reimagined ’90s Grunge classics by Soundgarden and Nirvana.
Cutchins’s distinctive aesthetical through-line is backed by elite rising Jazz stars: pianist-producer David Cook, guitarist Nir Felder, bassist Matt Clohesy, and new MSM Jazz Arts Faculty member and alumnus, drummer Obed Calvaire (BM ’03, MM ’05)
To learn more about the album, click here.
The Ted Rosenthal all-star Sextet played a concert entitled “Bernstein and Bop” at Tanglewood’s Linde Center for Music and Learning, and received a rave review from the Berkshire Edge:
“Ted Rosenthal, has all of Bernstein’s classical chops, plus a virtuosic facility for jazz that Lenny would have envied. His solo rendition of Bernstein’s ‘Somewhere’ had the crowd in tears. Now he owned them. Rosenthal’s leadership and arrangements are nothing short of brilliant,” writes reviewer David Noel Edwards.
Ted Rosenthal’s Sextet is:
Ted Rosenthal — piano Noriko Ueda — bass Dennis Mackrel — drums Erena Terakubo — alto saxophone Scott Robinson — tenor saxophone Gary Smulyan — baritone saxophone
Read the full review here.
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