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
Learn more here.
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.
Rising star jazz vocalist Julia Keefe (MM ’19) will perform at the 2024 Monterey Jazz Festival on September 29th with her Julia Keefe Indigenous Ensemble. Last month, she and her Quartet performed selections from her Mildred Bailey Project at SFJAZZ’s Joe Henderson Lab as a part of SFJAZZ’s Indigenous Songbook series, paying tribute to this fellow female jazz vocalist with Indigenous ancestry who was an early legend of the genre.
Keefe is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and grew up on her Tribe’s reservation in Kamiah, Idaho before moving to Spokane, Washington, where she began learning Jazz. In her junior high library, happening upon Mildred Bailey and Bailey’s own Native ancestry was a defining moment for Keene, calling Bailey “her North Star.” In addition to her Mildred Bailey Project, Keefe leads the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band (her Ensemble is a nonet version of this project), which will perform at Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall in February.
Read the San Francisco Classical Voice article here.
Learn more about Julia here.
A trio of saxophonists will join the trio of jazz pianist, composer, and MSM faculty member Ted Rosenthal in Studio E at the Linde Center to play a new program called “Bernstein & Bop: A Saxophone Colossus.”
The musicians will play songs linked to, or written by, Leonard Bernstein.
On alto sax will be recent graduate of MSM, Erena Terakubo. The other musicians in the concert are: Gary Smulyan (baritone saxophone), Scott Robinson (tenor saxophone), Noriko Ueda (bass), and Dennis Mackrel (drums).
Ted Rosenthal speaks in detail about the concert to the publication The Berkshire Edge; the interview can be found here.
Information about the concert can be found here.
The former New York Yankees star helped win four World Series for the franchise and graduated from MSM in 2016 with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Arts. He is currently an MSM Trustee.
On September 20, Bernie Williams will perform at the 2024 Savannah Jazz Festival. Earlier this year, he made his debut performance with the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Conductor Gustavo Dudamel, at the Philharmonic’s spring gala at Lincoln Center.
Williams’s Moving Forward was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Album in 2009.
MSM Jazz Arts faculty member Darcy James Argue has been named Arranger of the Year in the 72nd Annual DownBeat Critics Poll. In addition, his recent recording Dynamic Maximum Tension — which features MSM Dean of Jazz Ingrid Jensen and MSM trombone faculty member Ryan Keberle — was voted one of the Top 10 Jazz Albums of the Year.
The composer and bandleader serves as one of the driving forces behind new generations of ambitious large ensemble instrumental music. Dynamic Maximum Tension serves as proof,” writes the magazine.
Read the list of the Top 20 Jazz Albums of the Year selected by the DownBeat Critics Poll here.
MSM Dean of Jazz Arts Ingrid Jensen and the Iowa Women’s Jazz Orchestra are headlining the Iowa City Jazz Festival taking place from July 5–7. An interview with Ingrid is featured this week in The Daily Iowan, the independent newspaper of the University of Iowa.
The paper says this collaboration with Ms. Jensen and the Orchestra has been years in the making, and that there are great expectations about the event, which Ms. Jensen says she is looking forward to.
“When I’m playing I’m always paying attention to the sounds around me, and that includes the audience… I’m very in tune with vibe, and music is all vibrations. When the audience opens up to that atmosphere, it can be very rewarding,” she tells the paper.
Last week, the MSM Dean of Jazz Arts led a jazz camp for high-school-aged players in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Read the interview with Ingrid Jensen in The Daily Iowan here.
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