The Germantown Performing Arts Center is excited to announce the upcoming performance of Jazz vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant. The multi-talented award winner will perform in the Duncan-Williams Performance Hall on Thursday, February 9, 2023, at 7:30 p.m.
Born in Miami, Florida, Cécile studied piano beginning at age five, sang in a children’s choir at eight, and then began classical voice lessons. She pursued dual tracks as an undergraduate in France (her mother is French, her father Haitian), studying French law at one university while attending the Darius Milhaud Conservatory studying baroque music and jazz. Though at the time she didn’t intend to sing professionally, she entered – and won – the Thelonious Monk competition in 2010. She has received Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for three of her albums and the prestigious and coveted MacArthur Fellowship and Doris Duke Artist Award in 2020.
In addition to her vocal artistry, Cécile makes large-scale textile drawings. Her visual art can be found at Picture Room in Brooklyn, NY.
As a performer, Cécile dazzles audiences with her passion for storytelling and unique ability to explore the connections between vaudeville, blues, folk traditions from around the world, theater, jazz, and baroque music. She is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor.
Cécile returns to GPAC to share brand-new songs and arrangements alongside a talented group of young instrumentalists, each of them already a first-call player on the jazz circuit. Her latest work, Ogresse, is a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends genres. Intense and evocative, Ghost Song explores the many ways people can be haunted — by lingering memories, roads not taken, ghosts real and imagined.
“Cécile connects with audiences on a deeper level, offering an intimate concert experience you won’t forget,” said Paul Chandler, Executive Director of GPAC. “We are so pleased to welcome this incomparable artist to the GPAC stage.”
Tickets are on sale now at the GPAC website or by calling the box office at (901)751-7500.