Premieres...

Tuesday I premiere my Jazz Seasons show in South Carolina... an iteration of this show appeared twice at New York's Metropolitan Room a few years back and was one of my first forays into solo cabaret. I have found that I enjoy playing and singing in this context--the freedom of performing all by oneself is radically liberating somehow. Don't get me wrong--I love performing with great artists! But the cabaret world seems to welcome a person alone onstage. One of the greatest freedoms of performing in this context is the permission to improvise aspects I would ordinarily leave predictable... meter, feel, texture, tempo, rubato... and for a true improviser like myself, that lack of knowing what will happen is particularly gratifying.

This year alone I have premiered four distinct shows: Divas and Masters of Jazz (my latest version of this), The Great American Songbook (with Greenville Jazz Collective), Tish Oney Swings Into Spring, and Jazz Seasons. Last winter I premiered my new holiday pops symphony show with Symphoria on a four-city tour throughout New York State. None of the repertoire for any of these five shows has repeated itself! Having a large body of performing material going at the same time gets pretty demanding, but I have always loved a good challenge. Or twenty. Bring it!

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