credit Karolis Kaminskas
Cécile McLorin Salvant, is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings”. Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, theater, jazz, baroque and folkloric music. Salvant is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor.
Winner of the Thelonius Monk competition in 2010, she received Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for three consecutive albums. In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. She was the 2024–2025 Perspectives artist at Carnegie Hall. Salvant performs at Bailey Hall with her quartet of Sullivan Fortner, Yasushi Nakamura, and Kyle Poole.
“She sang with perfect intonation, elastic rhythm, an operatic range from thick lows to silky highs. She had emotional range, too, inhabiting different personas in the course of a song, sometimes even a phrase—delivering the lyrics in a faithful spirit while also commenting on them, mining them for unexpected drama and wit.”