Isabella Isherwood to Make NYC Concert Debut with THE SWEETEST SOUNDS

This year, 23 year old jazz vocalist, pianist, and actor Isabella Isherwood released The Sweetest Sounds, a debut album that reveals a mature artist with a strong command of lyrics, tone, and narrative. She will celebrate the album with her NYC concert debut Oct. 10, 7pm at Chelsea Table + Stage. Drawing from the Great American Songbook, modern jazz repertoire, and select contemporary material, the album is unified by Isherwood's clear, warm alto and actor's sensitivity to language.

A Chicago native, Isherwood's musical gifts run deep. She began studying classical piano at age four and grew up immersed in jazz recordings through her grandfather, Jerry Libby, a Detroit-based pianist and club owner whose independent label, Sabrina Records, was founded in 1964. Isherwood has already built a résumé that spans concert halls, festivals, and international touring. She performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall and Ravinia, appeared at the Chicago Jazz Festival, and toured extensively throughout Europe. Parallel to her music career, she is also an accomplished actor and co-founder of a theater company, bringing a distinctly dramatic and textual awareness to her vocal interpretations. The album was released in April by Sabrina Records, produced by Champian Fulton.

While the repertoire ranges from buoyant swing to blues-tinged introspection, including a striking version of Amy Winehouse's “Love Is a Losing Game,” the album never feels eclectic for its own sake. Instead, it presents a cohesive artistic statement: a young artist using classic material to articulate a personal, contemporary voice. With inventive arrangements, seasoned collaborators, and a vocalist who approaches every song as a dramatic role, The Sweetest Sounds marks the arrival of Isabella Isherwood as a serious new presence in jazz, one whose artistry extends beyond genre, geography, or age. The album opens with a bold arrangement of “Devil May Care” that reveals Isherwood's confident maturity and the title track, “The Sweetest Sounds,” serves as the album's emotional and conceptual anchor. “These songs aren't only about romantic love,” Isherwood explains. “They're about the creative act, the music that exists inside you before it becomes real.” That philosophy shapes performances that feel lived-in rather than ornamental, with each lyric treated as a piece of storytelling (three of the album's 12 tracks are intimate duets with individual band members, underscoring her emphasis on musical dialogue & trust).