Grammy Nominee And Rising Star Jazzmeia Horn To Open 2018 STAVE SESSIONS

The Celebrity Series of Boston welcomes jazz vocalist Jazzmeia Horn to kick off its fourth annual Stave Sessions, the unique concert series showcasing the innovative, the experimental, and the collaborative approaches of emerging artists. The concert takes place Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at 160 Massachusetts Avenue, at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Tickets are $35 and may be purchased by calling 617-482-6661 or by visiting www.celebrityseries.org. Discounted ticket for students are available. Doors open at 7pm and the concert begins at 8pm.

"Horn was determined to find her own voice, and she has succeeded." -All About Jazz
"Jazzmeia is a performer for whom every word, gesture, and ornament becomes an expression of her total conviction and she completely comes alive in the moment." --London Jazz News

Jazzmeia Horn is a 2018 Grammy Award Nominee (best jazz vocal album), winner of the 2015 Thelonius Monk International Vocal Jazz Competition and 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Hailing from the great Dallas, Texas Jazzmeia has already earned a reputation in New York as a "Rising Star." With the ambition to pursue a solo career, Jazzmeia graced the New York scene in 2009 and earned her degree at The New School for Jazz and contemporary Music. It wasn't much later when she began to perform as a sideman with musicians Winard Harper, Junior Mance, Billy Harper, Lincoln Center Alumni Vincent Gardner, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mike LeDonne, Peter Bernstein, Johnny O'Neal, Vincent Herring, Kirk Lightsey, Frank Wess, and Ellis Marsalis. Jazzmeia then began to appear in world famous jazz festivals and legendary jazz clubs such as Lenox Lounge, Bill's Place, The Apollo, The Blue Note, Dizzy's Jazz Club Coca­Cola, Minton's, The Jazz Standard, Smalls Jazz Club, Zinc, Jazz Gallery, Birdland, and The New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Her accolades include Downbeat Student Music Award Recipient 2008, 2009, and Best Vocal Jazz Soloist Winner 2010, The 2013 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at The Kennedy Center­Washington D.C., The Rising Star Award for the 2012 Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition, Finalist for Mid­Atlantic Jazz Vocal Competition 2014, and The 2015 ­16th Annual Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium's Young Lioness Award. The 2018 Stave Sessions take place March 20-24, 2018 and highlight contemporary musicians often early in their careers who take diverse approaches to their music, integrating musical training and non-conforming styles to deliver performances that defy standard labels. The concerts take place at 160 Massachusetts Avenue, a unique and intimate venue located on the Berklee College of Music campus where floor-to-ceiling windows offer concertgoers an urban backdrop with views of the city and an upscale, cabaret feel. Jazzmeia Horn

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Dallas-born singer Jazzmeia Horn supercharged her young career with a win in the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute competition, and impressed critics with her 2017 debut album A Social Call. JazzTimes called her "a fully realized stylist and a first-rate scatter" with "vivacity, imagination, gutsiness and sociopolitical savvy." Downbeat Magazine praised her "thrilling presence, with a musical sensibility that strikes a deft balance between mid-century jazz and contemporary neo-soul." House of Waters

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Brooklyn's House of Waters blends unexpected instrumentation with influences spanning four continents and as many genres: jazz, folk, world, indie rock. Fronted by "the Jimi Hendrix of the hammered dulcimer" (NPR) Max ZT, the trio also includes drummer Ignacio Rivas Bixio and six-string bass player Moto Fukushima. New York Music Daily calls them "one of New York's most interesting and unique bands. Part funky jamband, part Afrobeat and part pan-Asian, there is no other group in the world who sound remotely like them."

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Oakland-based Ensemble Mik Nawooj, led by Berklee alum and composer/pianist Joowan Kim, injects Western European classical compositional techniques into hip hop to create "something that sounds giant and important" (East Bay Express). MCs/lyricists Do D.A.T. and Sandman share the stage with a classical chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano), heavy bass, funky drums, and a lyric soprano to perform original compositions and to reinvent East Coast and West Coast classics. Claire Chase My Brightest Diamond

Friday, March 23, 2018 (double-bill)

Flutist Claire Chase - MacArthur fellow, Avery Fisher Prize winner, founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble, and "staggering virtuoso with the assurance of a rock star" (LA Times) - makes her Celebrity Series debut on a double bill that also features the return of My Brightest Diamond, fronted by relentlessly collaborative and versatile composer and vocalist Shara Nova.
Bent Knee Saturday,

March 24, 2018 with Boston Conservatory at Berklee Percussion Ensemble

This Boston-based six piece experimental rock band - lead singer/keyboardist Courtney Swain, guitarist Ben Levin, bassist Jessica Kion, drummer Gavin Wallace-Ainsworth, violinist Chris Baum, and live sound designer Vince Welch - breaks "new stylistic and temperamental ground" (The Boston Globe) by bringing rock, pop, minimalist, and avant-garde elements into a lush, thrilling whole that's "equal parts ingenuity and deliciousness" (The Wall Street Journal). "At Celebrity Series of Boston, showcasing and supporting emerging artists is part of who we are," said Gary Dunning, President and Executive Director. "Stave Sessions is a great vehicle for this, presenting artists who are doing new, unique work--artists who often redefine boundaries of genre and defy expectations. We're proud, too, to present Stave in our pop-up cabaret, offering a new venue to experience new music." Previous Stave Sessions artists included Roomful of Teeth, Brooklyn Rider, Gabriel Kahane, Kneebody + Daedelus, yMusic, Sam Amidon, and others. Stave Sessions is sponsored by Margaret Eagle & Eli Rapoport, Susan & Michael Thonis, Michael & Debra Raizman, Randolph Hawthorne & Carliss Baldwin, and Marylen Sternweiler.

Celebrity Series of Boston was founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond. Over the course of its 78-year history, Celebrity Series has presented an array of the world's greatest performing artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Toscanini, Ignace Paderewski, Artur Rubenstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia, Kirsten Flagstad, Marian Anderson, Luciano Pavarotti, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham, Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New York City Opera Company. The Celebrity Series has been bringing the very best performers-from orchestras and chamber ensembles, vocal and piano music, to dance companies, jazz, and more-to Boston's major concert halls for 78 years. The Celebrity Series of Boston believes in the power of excellence and innovation in the performing arts to enrich life experiences, transform lives and build better communities. Through its education initiatives, the Celebrity Series seeks to build a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, lifelong, shared experience-on stages, in schools, at home- everywhere.

The Celebrity Series of Boston, Inc. receives generous support from Amy & Joshua Boger, Leslie & Howard Appleby, the Boston Cultural Council, The Boston Foundation, the Stephanie L. Brown Foundation, Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC, the Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation, Deloitte LLP, Donna & Mike Egan, Foley & Lardner LLP, Gabor Garai & Susan Pravda, David & Harriet Griesinger, Zachary Haroutunian and the Garbis & Arminé Barsoumian Charitable Foundation, the Charles and Cerise Jacobs Charitable Foundation, Paul L. King, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Joseph McNay, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Eleanor & Frank Pao, The Peabody Foundation, PTC, the Cynthia and John S. Reed Foundation, the Royal Little Family Foundation, the Stifler Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Henri A. Termeer, Michael and Susan Thonis, Tufts Health Plan, Sanjay & Sangeeta Verma, Nancy Richmond Winsten, Anonymous, and many others.