We’re not just celebrating the Fine Arts Center’s first fifty years this season. We’re celebrating the sound that helped define them — and continues to shape what comes next.
Fifty years in, the pulse of this music still drives us. And as we look toward the century mark, we know it will keep leading the way — unpredictable, uncontainable, and as vital as ever.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis: Afro!
with Shenel Johns and Weedie Braimah
WORLD PREMIERE
Wednesday, September 17, 7:30 p.m.
Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall
Don’t miss this special event that kicks off the Fine Arts Center’s fiftieth anniversary season! The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will be joined by the extraordinary vocalist Shenel Johns and djembe virtuoso Weedie Braimah for the first ever live performance of a brand new work by Wynton Marsalis. Afro! explores jazz’s deep roots in African music. The work’s two-day premiere event starts here and concludes a day later at Lincoln Center.
The Brandee Younger Trio
Thursday, November 13, 7:30 p.m.
Bowker Auditorium
Innovative jazz harpist Brandee Younger nods to Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane even while advancing her own expansive vision of jazz, which incorporates sounds from R&B, hip-hop, and other pop forms. Younger’s eighth and latest album, Gadabout Season, is her most personal to date. The album is gorgeous, rich, and engaging — much like Younger’s live sets.
Kris Davis Trio
Thursday, March 5, 7:30 p.m.
Bowker Auditorium
Pianist Kris Davis has built her career on a commitment to group improvisation that is remarkable even within the context of jazz. A Grammy-winning pianist and composer, Davis has twenty-four recordings as a bandleader or co-leader to her credit. Her recorded material has won critical accolades and awards. But Davis is truly at her best when she’s on stage leading live collaborations between great musicians.
Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott)
Saturday, March 28, 8 p.m.
Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott) has never been content to stand still and inhabit only the present. Adjuah has developed custom brass and string instruments as part of an ongoing quest to explore new sounds. His work as a composer and bandleader rejects restrictive ideas of genre, shattering boundaries in pursuit of limitless innovation. And that pursuit has delivered awards and critical acclaim for his thirteen albums and his live sets alike.
Lucía
Thursday, April 9, 8 p.m.
The Drake
Lucía is a twenty-six-year-old vocalist from Veracruz, México whose singular artistic vision bridges the gaps between jazz, Latin, and pop music. Winner of the 2022 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, Lucía is an enchanting live performer whose days of appearing in intimate settings like The Drake won’t last much longer.