Jazz Festival

An esteemed saxophonist, vocalist, accomplished composer, and educator, Camille Thurman is quickly becoming one of the leading young standard bearers of jazz, making a considerable and dynamic contribution to its legacy. She is known for her creative brilliance, effortless mastery, and undeniably distinct approach to the music as both a powerhouse vocalist and saxophonist.  

Thurman was the first woman in 30 years to tour and perform full-time internationally with the world renown Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as a saxophonist/woodwind doubler (2018 – 2020 season). A respected leading musician, she has appeared at notable venues and festivals around the world, including The Kennedy Center, Rose Theater, Winter Jazz Fest, and on The Colbert Show. 

Thurman has four full-length recordings as a leader to her credit. Her most recent project, Fortitude (to be released in 2022), is a collaboration with master drummer Darrell Green and his quartet. 

Innovative master drummer, Darrell Green is one of the leading, most highly sought-after drummers on today’s jazz scene. Embodying effortless technical mastery and spirit-filled rhythms deeply rooted in the modern post-bop tradition, he developed a style retaining elements of both the gospel and classical lineage while taking listeners on a spiritual journey. 

Many have compared his rhythmic sense of style, inventiveness, and feel to the likes of Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, and Art Blakey. A respected bandleader and sideman, Green has toured and performed in notable concert halls and music festivals around the world, including Jazz At Lincoln Center, The Blue Note, The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, and the Montreux Jazz Festival. 

Green’s most recent project, Fortitude, is a collaboration with Camille Thurman. His newest trio project is set to be released in the fall of 2022.  

For more information on Darrell Green, please visit his website. 

Elio Villafranca, piano  

Chick Corea was quoted in a 2019 Billboard interview as saying, “That [Latin] flavor, I find, is mostly in everything I do; it’s a part of me.” For today’s celebration of Jazz icon Chick Corea, who tragically passed away in 2021, Elio Villafranca will delve into the maestro’s music from a distinctly Afro-Caribbean-meets-jazz perspective, joined by a cadre of master musicians. When Jazz at Lincoln Center hosted a week-long Chick Corea Festival in 2013, Corea hand-picked the musicians he wanted to see and hear play at the venue, with Elio Villafranca being one of them. Corea’s masterful storytelling knew no bounds – from Bach and Bartok to the Blues, from Stravinksy to Samba, Mozart to Montunos, Ravel and Rhumba – all tempered with the language of Swing with the Spanish Tinge. 

Cuban-born pianist and composer Elio Villafranca is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient; a two-time Grammy nominee; 2019 Downbeat Critic’s Poll Rising Stars Pianist; winner of the 2018 Downbeat Critic’s Poll Rising Stars Keyboard; first Cuban-born recipient of the Sunshine Award (2017), founded to recognize excellence in the performing arts, education, science and sports of the various Caribbean countries, South America, Centro America, and Africa; and a recipient of the first Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) Millennium Swing Award in 2014.  Based in NYC, Villafranca is a jazz faculty member at The Juilliard School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and Temple University in Philadelphia. 

To learn more about Elio Villafranca, please visit his website.

Candice Hoyes 

Candice Hoyes is an artist with a “chill-inducing range” (Vogue). Candice’s 2021 EP Blue Lagoon Woman is regaled in Carnegie Hall’s Timeline of African American Music (2022): “More recently, artists such as Flying Lotus, Future, RZA, Thundercat, Moor Mother, and others, including singer and songwriter Candice Hoyes, have made [Afrofuturist] contributions. A graduate of Harvard who earned a JD degree from Columbia University, Hoyes is an artist-intellectual whose 2021 EP Blue Lagoon Woman exemplifies several Afrofuturist characteristics….Her scholarship on such luminaries of African American cultural history represents a noticeable departure from the usual practice of isolating creativity and critical analysis, and the textures of her sound exemplify Afrofuturism as well.” 

Born to Jamaican parents, Candice is a performance artist and archivist mutually steeped in exploring the untold stories of her heritage and envisioning the next leg of Black liberation. She gravitated toward Black feminist musicians and writers at an early age and began composing after starting an acclaimed career as a classical Soprano soloist who has recorded and collaborated with Philip Glass, Ricky Ian Gordon, Wynton Marsalis, and the late Lorin Maazel, her prizes including the International Liszt Vocal Competition, Oratorio Society of NY, and Paul Robeson Vocal Competition.

Candice’s recent works include Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 2022 NYC JazzFest, Detroit Symphony, the Blue Note, and supporting Chaka Khan, Lalah Hathaway, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. As an activist, she was commissioned in 2020 by Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote and National Black Theater to compose music to mobilize Black voters. Candice is a mother of two, a TED alumna, and a serial lecturer at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and she anticipates two new album releases next year. In multiple aspects, Candice brings “Black history into the present” (NPR). 

To learn more about Candice Hoyes, please follow her journey @candicehoyes on all social platforms. 

Damien Sneed 

Damien Sneed is a multi-genre recording artist and a recipient of the prestigious Sphinx Medal of Excellence, which is presented annually to emerging Black and Latino leaders in classical music. He has worked with jazz, classical, pop, and R&B legends, including the late Aretha Franklin, Wynton Marsalis, Jessye Norman, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, among others, and he has served as music director for Grammy Award-winning gospel artists The Clark Sisters, Richard Smallwood, Donnie McClurkin, Hezekiah Walker, Marvin Sapp, Karen Clark Sheard, Dorinda Clark-Cole and Kim Burrell. Sneed recently embarked on a 36-city North American tour, We Shall Overcome: A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. featuring Damien Sneed. 

Sneed is the founder and artistic director of Chorale Le Chateau, which has gained a global reputation for its vivid interpretations of vocal literature, from Renaissance period pieces to art songs to jazz, spirituals, gospel, and avant-garde contemporary music.  

At age 28, trumpeter and singer Benny Benack III performs widely as a frontman for Postmodern Jukebox, the vintage music collective famed for canny old-school covers of modern pop. In early 2020, he released A Lot of Livin’ to Do, the follow-up to his well-received 2017 debut album, One of a Kind.   

Benack has been showcased in international headliner tours at Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai, JALC’s “NY Jazz All-Stars” (Mexico), and throughout Asia and Europe. He has headlined domestic tours around the U.S., including the Vail Jazz Party, Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Pittsburgh JazzLive International, and the Vancouver Jazz Festival, to name a few, and has been featured at Birdland, Mezzrow, the Carlyle, and other leading New York venues.   

Benack is third in a generational line of Pittsburgh jazz notables. His grandfather, trumpeter/bandleader Benny Benack, Sr. (1921 – 86), hailed from a Pittsburgh lineage that also produced Roy Eldridge, Earl Hines, Art Blakey, and many more. Benny III often returns to Pittsburgh to perform, saluting his family forebears and the jazz heritage as a whole, nonetheless staking his bold and highly individual artistic claim. 

South African Composer and Saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane began his musical journey at the Siyakhula Music Centre under the gentle guidance of the late Dr. Brian Thusi. His determination led to a relentless work schedule performing live and also in the studio with Nduduzo Makhathini and the H3 horn ensemble. Emerging victorious at the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship competition, he utilized the prize money to fund his Degree programme at The New School in New York. Here, he was mentored by greats such as Billy Harper, Reggie Workman, David Schnitter, and Charles Tolliver.

His debut offering, Two Sides, One Mirror (2017), featured a superior cast of young mavericks in the improvised music scene. The compositions were lyrical, offering the listener a chance to remain fully immersed in the spiritual aspects of the music while concurrently admiring the studious nature of its technical proficiency.

His sophomore album is entitled An Open Dialogue (2020). The live performance concert in New York consisted of music composed for his Senior recital at The New School. The project’s release coincided with Sikhakhane being chosen as Apple Music’s Artist of the Month (November 2020), making him the second South African Jazz musician to achieve the feat. An Open Dialogue was nominated at the South African Music Awards under the Best Jazz Album category.

Linda Sikhakhane has worked with a broad array of artists: Sibongile Khumalo, Khaya Mahlangu, Nduduzo Makhathini, Gregory Porter, Rodney Kendrick, Rhonda Ross Kendrick, Logan Richardson, Derrick Hodge, Ted Daniel, Thandiswa Mazwai, Herbie Tsoaeli and more.

His 2022 release under Ropeadope is titled Isambulo, which translates from Zulu to revelation. A fluid and deep exploration of Jazz, seamlessly blended with tradition, Isambulo brings the present day listener back to the root. Evoking images of a New York night, with flowing saxophone and sultry vocals wafting out of a crowded bar, Sikhakane’s compositions and performance do not overplay either genre. There is a gentleness and calm to this carefully understated mix, a mood that is much needed in our chaotic world. In the end, Isambulo speaks of peace.

Trumpet player Summer Camargo is a Jerome Greene Fellow at The Juilliard School, majoring in Jazz Studies. Born and raised in Hollywood, Florida, Camargo has been a member of the prestigious Grammy Band, Next Generation Women in Jazz Combo, and Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. She was named a National Young Arts Foundation Merit winner, and she was also Downbeat Magazine’s Outstanding Student Jazz Performance Award recipient.  

At the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Essentially Ellington Festivals, she received Outstanding Trumpet Soloist Awards. In 2018, Camargo won the Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist Award and the Dr. J. Douglas White Student Composition Contest. She was honored to have the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra record her first, original big band chart, Leap Froggin’. She also participated in the Vail Jazz Workshop, Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz, the Monterey Jazz Festival Gala, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala.  

In 2020, she joined the Ulysses Owens, Jr. Big Band, was featured in FENDI’s Anima Mundi project in New York City and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Big Band Holiday concert, and was awarded with an Outstanding Trumpet Soloist Award at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s inaugural Jack Rudin Championship. Recently, she placed third in the International Trumpet Guild’s 2021 Ryan Anthony Trumpet Memorial Competition, and she has been commissioned by the University of North Carolina in Greensboro to write an original big band composition for its jazz program. 

To learn more about Summer Camargo, follow her on Instagram.

Chien Chien Lu is a vibraphonist, contemporary percussionist, and composer whose Taiwanese upbringing, classical music education, and passion for R&B grooves crystallize into a fresh and distinctive approach to contemporary jazz.

Lu’s fierce authenticity and jazz mastery shine bright on her September 2020 debut solo project, The Path, which spent 20 weeks on the Jazz Week Charts Top 20, earned Best Jazz Songs in Golden Indie Music Awards and three Golden Melody Awards nominations, four Golden Indie Music Awards nominations and led to Lu’s being named the “vibraphone rising star” in Downbeat Magazine’s 69th Annual Critics Poll. Lu’s band has also played many prestigious festivals including the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, and toured extensively in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Accompanied on The Path by an elite cast of musicians, Lu offers a unique, intersectional perspective on modern jazz as a Taiwanese-born woman vibraphonist with a masters in classical music from Taipei National University of the Arts as well as in jazz from University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

During her time as a classical percussionist, Lu has collaborated with composer Ching-Mei Lin and performed her marimba concerto for six-mallet marimba entitled “Pulsing Wave,” performed a solo percussion concert at Taipei Novel Hall, and in 2014, was named “Emerging Young Artist” for her work with her marimba duo at Taipei University of the Arts. 

In 2015, Lu came to the United States to study jazz vibraphone with Philadelphia’s Tony Miceli, and graduated with a Masters of Music in Jazz Studies from University of the Arts in Philadelphia shortly thereafter. In 2017, she attended the prestigious Banff Jazz Residency under the direction of jazz pianist, Vijay Iyer, where she first met jazz trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. From there, Lu began to perform regularly in the U.S. and was invited to join the esteemed Jeremey Pelt Quintet.

In the next few years, Lu will continue to record and tour internationally with the Jeremy Pelt Quintet and her own band, and she plans to soon release a project in collaboration with bassist Richie Goods entitled, “Someday We’ll All Be Free.” She’s also recording her sophomore solo project for release in 2022.

Richie Goods
Music is the fulfillment of Richie’s destiny – it’s in his DNA. The youngest person ever inducted into the Pittsburgh Jazz Hall of Fame, bassist Richie Goods got an early start playing in church and clubs while still attending Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts High School. After graduating from the prestigious jazz program at Berklee College of Music, Richie moved to New York City, where he studied under jazz legends Ron Carter and Ray Brown.

Richie credits jazz luminary Mulgrew Miller for helping him hone his jazz skills early in his career. Richie toured and recorded with Mulgrew for nine years. That opportunity brought Richie to the attention of many in the jazz community and afforded him the opportunity to record and tour with a variety of jazz and popular artists ranging from the Headhunters, Lenny White, Louis Hayes and the Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band, Milt Jackson, Russell Malone, Vincent Herring, the Manhattan Transfer and Walter Beasley to Brian McKnight, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Whitney Houston and Christina Aguilera. 

Richie’s lengthy discography also includes Grammy award-winning and platinum albums of Alicia Keys and Common. Richie most recently toured with Grammy-winning trumpeter, Chris Botti.

Richie’s two solo projects with his fusion/funk band, “Richie Goods and Nuclear Fusion, Live at the Zinc Bar” and  “Three Rivers” received critical acclaim.  His latest release, “My Left Hand Man – A Tribute to Mulgrew Miller” spent 36 weeks on the JazzWeek charts, 8 in the top 20.  When not on tour, he can be found in his Westchester, NY studio, producing records for his company, RichMan Music, Inc.

Sarah Hanahan is an up-and-coming jazz saxophonist in New York City currently pursuing her master’s degree in Jazz Performance at The Juilliard School. In 2015, Sarah was awarded a full scholarship to study jazz performance at the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz within the Hartt School of Music (University of Hartford). Her college professors include well-known jazz saxophone performers Javon Jackson and Abraham Burton. 

In the fall of 2020, Sarah started pursuing her master’s degree at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City and started making a name for herself in the New York Jazz Scene. Since she has been in the city, her career has only been gaining more attention and momentum. Recently, Sarah has been working with many renowned musicians including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ulysses Owens Jr. and Generation Y, The Mingus Big Band, Sherrie Miracle and the Diva Orchestra, Steve Davis, Nat Reeves, Barry Stephenson, Jason Moran, and Emmet Cohen. Sarah has been playing in venues around NYC with her own Quartet and other bands including Smalls Jazz Club, Dizzy’s Club, the Harlem Jazz Museum, Times Square Jazz series, The Django, Central Park Keyed Up series, the Side Door Jazz Club, and many others. Sarah is currently touring Worldwide and plans to record and release her first debut album by the end of this year. 

Tyreek McDole, the 22-year-old vocal phenom who’s turning heads and wooing audiences with his rich sound and smooth delivery, has been hailed as a brilliant star. Growing up in Kissimmee, Florida, music has been an integral part of his life having found inspiration from artists including Louis Armstrong, Marvin Gaye, Betty Carter, Charlie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and many others.

Tyreek hadn’t seriously begun singing until studying at the Osceola County School for the Arts in Kissimmee, Fl. Having entered as a classical percussion major, he once sang in the stead of a missing actor during a production of ‘Into The Woods’ where his Jazz director noticed his natural sensibility and warm tone and asked him to sing with their top ensemble “Jazz Band A”. In his early teens, McDole found a “home” with swinging baritones such as Billy Eckstine, Andy Bey, and the legendary Joe Williams. Since then, McDole has been chosen as an Outstanding Vocalist by Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition, a 2018 Youngarts Finalist, and a Central Florida Jazz Society Champion three times, amongst other honors.  Tyreek has performed alongside spectacular acts such as Ted Nash, Rodney Whitaker, Marcus Printup, Eric Reed, Carl Allen, Victor Goines, The Dr. Phillips Jazz Orchestra, The Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra, and The Orlando Jazz Orchestra to name a few. He is currently studying Jazz performance at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music and expects to graduate in Spring 2023.

New York guitarist James Zito’s masterful touch and soulful melodies inspired Artslife Magazine to dub him “The Natural” Born in Orlando, Florida, he is admired both for his authentic approach inspired by Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian and George Benson. 

At 26 years old, Zito has performed at many of the city’s top venues including, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Birdland theatre, the Django, and many others. 

Zito is currently at Juilliard as a part of their Artist Diploma Program where he focuses on writing and arranging in a 6 piece ensemble that tours around NYC and overseas during their 2-year residency. Zito’s recent achievements include First Place in the Wilson Center International Guitar Competition and Special Prize at the Jarek Smietana International Guitar Competition in Krakow, Poland. He was awarded the guitar chair for the Dr. Phillips Jazz Orchestra directed by esteemed bassist and educator Rodney Whitaker. Other collaborations include performances with Wycliffe Gordon, Michael Dease, Jane Monheit, Dick Oatts, Chad Lefkowitz Brown, Adam Nussbaum, Terell Stafford, Kenny Washington, among many others. In 2019 he was named a “Geri Allen Fellow” of the Gathering Orchestra, an All-Star ensemble with residency in Detroit.  In 2020, Zito became an Endorsing Artist for Benedetto Guitars, a leading manufacturer of custom handmade guitars.

James Zito is a dedicated music educator and has taught Jazz and Guitar in the U.S. and abroad at The Dr. Phillips Jazz Intensive, Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, The Orlando Jazz Workshop, South Hampton Summer Jazz camp, Brevard Jazz Workshop, Michigan State University, and many more.  He is currently working on his first project as a leader.