"Building Transformative Leadership through Music & the Arts"
The incredibly versatile Saunders Sermons is a two-time Grammy award winning singer/songwriter/trombonist who has toured the world with some of the most acclaimed artists in the industry including Tedeschi Trucks Band, Jay-Z, P Diddy, Maxwell, and Roy Hargrove to name a few.
Composer-pianist VIJAY IYER has released two dozen albums, including seven on ECM Records, and has collaborated with Amiri Baraka, Wadada Leo Smith, Carrie Mae Weems, Teju Cole, Tyshawn Sorey, Pamela Z, Henry Threadgill, Jennifer Koh, Matt Haimovitz, Brentano Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and many other artists across disciplines.
Multi GRAMMY® Award nominee Nnenna Freelon is known worldwide as a compelling and captivating live performer. Recently, Nnenna starred in the critically acclaimed show Georgia on My Mind: Celebrating the Music of Ray Charles - no stranger to the music of the master singer - she toured with Ray Charles, as well as many other great jazz artists including Ellis Marsalis, Al Jarreau, George Benson, Earl Klugh, Take 6, and others.
Nabaté Isles is a Grammy-winning trumpeter as well as a composer and producer, born and raised in New York City. Nabaté's second album called, En Motion, was released on Ropeadope Records on January 27, 2023. The album features the core lineup of Sam Barsh (also the album’s producer), Eric Harland, Kaveh Rastegar, David Gilmore and Rachel Eckroth & guests include James Francies, Ben Wendel, Victor Provost, Sasha Berliner and Badia Farha. Added featured performers on the album are Mumu Fresh, Kardinal Offishall and Chuck D.
Frank Butrey graduated from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Guitar Performance and Studio Teaching. He studied classical guitar under the expert tutelage of Dimitri Erdely. Frank studied jazz improvisation, composition and arranging with Basil Ronzitti, Ed Flanagan and Steve Giordano.
Nicholas Payton is an NEA Jazz Master who is a Grammy Award-winning musician and a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, arranger, and social activist.
Alexander Claffy is a jazz bassist, composer and arranger based in New York. He has played with artists including Jimmy Cobb, Louis Hayes, Harold Mabern, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Christian Scott and Joey Alexander. In addition to an album of standards, he has released a series of genre-defying compositions with his band simply known as Claffy.
Warren Oree started the Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble in 1979 and has been touring the world and performing with the group at jazz festivals in Europe, the Caribbean and South America ever since. His command and demand of his upright acoustic bass mesmerizes audiences, unaccustomed to hearing the wide, colorful array of sounds that he can extract - from frenetically bowing and knocking on the base, to delicately lifting it through the air in an ecstatic dance of digital delay.
