Saturday August 4, 7:00pm at Stonington Opera House

For more than two decades, Myra Melford has been among jazz’s most accomplished and daring pianists and composers.

Her career has been defined by a restless curiosity, an openness to collaboration, and a highly personal style that incorporates such wide-ranging influences as Chicago blues, Zen Buddhism and the “organic philosophy” of Frank Lloyd Wright. Her music for Snowy Egret is informed by vernacular American musical idioms—blues, jazz, Latin dance rhythms—to suggest the music of the Americas while creating new hybrid forms in the spirit of the American Experimentalists.

Join Melford and her quintet mates—guitarist Liberty Ellman, bassist Stomu Takeishi, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and drummer Gerald Cleaver (all acclaimed leaders themselves)—for music The Wall Street Journal calls, “lean, lithe and unusually appealing.”

Curated by award-winning music critic and journalist Larry Blumenfeld.​

Opening Act: Joseph Boulet & Peter Apfelbaum.

In the 2015 Jazz Festival, Joseph was a member of the George Stevens Academy opening act, and Peter was headlining with Dafnis Prieto. The two connected in the concert, and now, three years later, are coming together at the Jazz festival again in a special duo performance.

Contact Stonington Opera House for ticket information.

Photo courtesy of Opera House Arts.