Renee Rosnes
Renee Rosnes is one of the premier jazz pianists and composers of her generation. Upon moving to New York City from Vancouver, Canada, she quickly established a reputation of high regard, touring and recording with such masters as Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, J.J. Johnson, James Moody and Bobby Hutcherson. She was a charter member of the all-star ensemble, the SFJAZZ Collective, with whom she toured for six years.
Rosnes has released 18 recordings and has appeared on many others as a sideman. In 2016, Written in the Rocks (Smoke Sessions) was named one of the Best Albums by The Nation, and was awarded a 2017 Canadian Juno (her fifth.) Kinds of Love, which was released in September 2021 (Smoke Sessions) features her dear friends Chris Potter, Christian McBride, Carl Allen and Rogério Boccato.
Over her 30-year career, Rosnes has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, such as Jack DeJohnette, Zakir Hussain, Christian McBride, Chris Potter, Renee Fleming and Nicholas Payton. Her works have been performed and recorded by J.J. Johnson, Phil Woods, Michael Dease, and the Danish Radio Big Band among others.
From 2008-2010, Rosnes was the host of The Jazz Profiles, an interview series produced by CBC-Radio and has contributed two cover story interviews for JazzTimes with Wayne Shorter and with Geri Allen.
Rosnes is a member of bassist Ron Carter’s Foursight Quartet, and often performs with her husband, acclaimed pianist Bill Charlap. The couple released Double Portrait (Blue Note) and performed their New York City concert debut in Zankel Hall in spring 2011 as part of The Shape of Jazz series. The piano duo was also featured on the 2016 Grammy Award winning album, Tony Bennett & Bill Charlap: The Silver Lining, The Songs of Jerome Kern (Columbia).
Ingrid Jensen
Ingrid Jensen has been hailed as one of the most gifted trumpeters of her generation and is a sought-out teacher, collaborator, and soloist.
After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1989, Jensen became the youngest professor in the history of the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz, Austria. She recorded three albums for ENJA in the 90s and become one of the most in- demand trumpet players on the global jazz scene.
She has been a member of the innovative jazz orchestras of Maria Schneider (1994-2012) and Darcy James Argue (2002-present) and has performed with a cast of jazz legends ranging from Clark Terry to Esperanza Spalding. Jensen performed alongside British R&B artist Corrine Bailey Rae on Saturday Night Live and recorded with Canadian pop icon Sarah McLachlan. More recently, Jensen has been performing with Grammy winner Terri Lyne Carrington.
One of Jensen’s most frequent and closest collaborators is her sister, the saxophonist and composer Christine Jensen. She is a featured soloist on the Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra’s Juno-award-winning album, Treelines (2011), and its successor, Habitat (2013). The sisters released a small group recording entitled Infinitude (Whirlwind) in 2016.
As a dedicated jazz educator, Jensen has taught at the University of Michigan and Peabody Conservatory; performed and lectured with the Thelonious Monk Institute High School group featuring Herbie Hancock; and performed and taught at the Centrum Jazz Workshop, The Dave Brubeck Institute, the Banff Centre Workshop in Jazz & Creative Music, the Stanford Jazz Camp, and the Geri Allen Jazz Camp for Young Women.
Jensen won the Carmine Caruso Trumpet Competition in 1995 and recently served as artist-in-residence at the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival.
Her latest album Invisible Sounds (Whirlwind) honors the late Kenny Wheeler and Jensen was hailed by the Jazz Journalist Association as 2019’s Trumpeter of the Year.
Nicole Glover
New York-based saxophonist Nicole Glover has been described as a “precocious talent”, a “rising saxophonist”, and “uninhibited”. She first made her professional mark in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, recording and performing with Grammy-award winning artist Esperanza Spalding, acclaimed multi- instrumentalist George Colligan, and renowned drummer/educator Alan Jones. Nicole was a member of acclaimed soul group Ural Thomas and the Pain, who received an Emmy Award for their feature episode of “Oregon Art Beat”. She also began performing internationally at festivals throughout Europe and North America and headlined the Portland Jazz Festival with her quartet. She has also performed with such musicians as Kenny Garrett, Geoffrey Keezer, Bennie Maupin, Chuck Israels, Mike Clark, Bill Stewart, Mel Brown, and Helen Sung.
Since Nicole moved to NYC in 2015, she has recorded and toured with Gene Perla, and has worked with Victor Lewis, Rodney Green, Jeff “Tain” Watts, David Weiss, Luis Perdomo, Jason Brown, and Bill Goodwin. Nicole has performed nationally and internationally at famed venues such as Birdland, Dizzy’s Club, Minton’s, Smalls, The Jazz Standard, Duc De Lombard, SFJazz, Jazz Bistro, Jazz Showcase, The Kennedy Center and numerous others. In 2019, Nicole joined Grammy-nominated artist Buika for her world tour, which included performances at the Newport Jazz Festival, Red Sea Jazz Festival, and Carnegie Hall. She released her latest album, Strange Lands, on Savant Records in August 2021.
Nicole is also an experienced educator and clinician. She is currently on faculty with the New York Jazz Workshop and is a teacher for multiple charter schools through the Jazz Empowers program.
Noriko Ueda
Noriko Ueda is originally from Hyogo, Japan. Her interest in music began early in her life, studying classical piano at the age of four. At 16, she began playing the electric bass and by 18 she began her career with the upright bass.
Ueda was the B.E.S.T. scholarship recipient for the Berklee College of Music where she majored in Jazz Composition, graduating in 1997. She then relocated to New York City and has since become an in-demand player with such legendary groups such as the Frank Wess Quintet and his Nonet, the Ted Rosenthal Trio, Sherrie Maricle and The Diva Jazz Orchestra, Five Play, Grady Tate’s Band, Harry Whitaker’s Band and with artists such as Marion Cowings, Makoto Ozone and Terumasa Hino.
Other career highlights to date include leading her own small groups and her big band, the Noriko Ueda Jazz Orchestra, and recording her first trio album, Debut, (Terashima Records) in 2015 which features pianist Ted Rosenthal and drummer Quincy Davis. She toured Japan with the Ted Rosenthal Trio for 11 consecutive years (2006 – 2017), and performed on his album Out of this World, which reached #1 on the national jazz radio charts in 2011.
Ueda was featured on a Japanese documentary TV show called “Gutto Chikyu- bin” which introduced the life as a jazz musician in New York City and won the third annual BMI Foundation/Charlie Parker Jazz composition Prize for her original big band piece “Castle in the North.”
Allison Miller
Drummer, composer and teacher Allison Miller has been described as a “Modern Jazz Icon in the Making”, has been named “Top 20 Jazz Drummers” in Downbeat and her composition “Otis Was a Polar Bear” is on NPR’s list of The 200 Greatest Songs by 21st Century Women. Miller served as a Monterey Jazz Festival 2019 Artist in Residence and is the first recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Commissioning Grant.
Miller’s band Boom Tic Boom, featuring pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, and bassist Todd Sickafoose is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of their album, Glitter Wolf. Previous releases include 5am Stroll, Boom Tic Boom, Live at Willisau, No Morphine No Lilies, and Otis was a Polar Bear.
Miller co-directs Parlour Game with Jenny Scheinman and Science Fair with Carmen Staaf. She is the musical director for Camille A. Brown’s Ink, Michelle Dorrance and the American Ballet Theater’s Dream Within A Dream, Speak with Rachna Nivas and Michelle Dorrance, and And Still You Must Swing with Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards.
As a side-musician, Miller has collaborated with Ani DiFranco, Sara Bareilles, Natalie Merchant, Brandi Carlile, and Toshi Reagon as well as Dr. Lonnie Smith, Patricia Barber, Marty Ehrlich, Myra Melford, Steven Bernstein, and Ben Allison.
Miller is a three-time Jazz Ambassador for the US State Department and has been appointed Arts Envoy to Thailand for her work with Jazz Education Abroad. She is on Yamaha’s Top 30 Clinicians List and teaches at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and is the Artistic Director of Jazz Camp West. Her instructional videos are produced and published by Reverb. In 2008 Miller founded the Walter Salb Memorial Musical Scholarship Foundation in honor of her late teacher and mentor.