Jazz Festival 2025

Jazz Program Director & Alto Saxophone, Rudresh Mahanthappa: Hailed by Pitchfork as “jaw-dropping… one of the finest saxophonists going,” alto saxophonist, composer and educator Rudresh Mahanthappa is widely known as one of the premier voices in jazz of the 21st century. He has over a dozen albums to his credit, including the acclaimed Bird Calls, which topped many critics’ best-of-year lists for 2015 and was hailed by PopMatters as “complex, rhythmically vital, free in spirit while still criss-crossed with mutating structures.” His most recent release, Hero Trio, was considered to be one of the best jazz albums of 2020 by critics and fans alike. Rudresh has been named alto saxophonist of the year for nine of the last eleven years running in Downbeat Magazine’s International Critics’ Polls (2011-2013, 2015-2018, 2020-1), and for five consecutive years by the Jazz Journalists’ Association (2009-2013) and again in 2016. He won alto saxophonist of the year in the 2015-2018 & 2020 JazzTimes Magazine Critics’ Polls and was named the Village Voice’s “Best Jazz Artist” in 2015. He has also received the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, among other honors, and is currently the Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz at Princeton University.

Born in Trieste, Italy to Indian émigrés in 1971, Mahanthappa was brought up in Boulder, Colorado and gained proficiency playing everything from current pop to Dixieland. He went on to studies at North Texas, Berklee and DePaul University (as well as the Stanford Jazz Workshop) and came to settle in Chicago. Soon after moving to New York in 1997 he formed his own quartet featuring pianist Vijay Iyer. The band recorded an enduring sequence of albums, Black Water, Mother Tongue and Codebook, each highlighting Mahanthappa’s inventive methodologies and deeply personal approach to composition. He and Iyer also formed the duo Raw Materials.

Coming deeper into contact with the Carnatic music of his parents’ native southern India, Mahanthappa partnered in 2008 with fellow altoist Kadri Gopalnath and the Dakshina Ensemble for Kinsmen, garnering wide acclaim. Apti, the first outing by Mahanthappa’s Indo-Pak Coalition (with Pakistani-born Rez Abbasi on guitar and Dan Weiss on tabla), saw release the same year; Agrima followed nine years later and considerably expanded the trio’s sonic ambitions. In 2020, Rudresh released Hero Trio, an album of “covers” paying tribute to his musical heroes followed by the digital EP Animal Crossing in 2022 with the same trio. He also co-led a project celebrating the centenary of Charlie Parker with the blessing of the Parker estate.

Mahanthappa has also worked with Jack DeJohnette, Mark Dresser, Danilo Pérez, Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, the collaborative trios MSG and Mauger, the co-led quintet Dual Identity with fellow altoist Steve Lehman, and another co-led quintet with fellow altoist and Chicago stalwart Bunky Green (Apex). His exploratory guitar-driven quartets on Samdhi and Gamak featured David Gilmore and Dave “Fuze” Fiuczynski, respectively. In 2015 he was commissioned by Ragamala Dance to create Song of the Jasmine for dancers and a hybrid jazz/South Indian ensemble.

He was also commissioned by the PRISM Saxophone Quartet to compose a chamber piece, “I Will Not Apologize for My Tone Tonight,” which can be heard on the quartet’s 2015 double-disc release Heritage/Evolution, Volume 1. He was recently commissioned by the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble to compose “Finding Our Voice” which premiered in 2021.

Mahanthappa is a Yamaha artist and uses Vandoren reeds exclusively.

Trumpet, Ted Chubb: Over the past two decades Ted Chubb has developed into both a deeply expressive trumpeter and an inventive composer. His solo release “Gratified Never Satisfied”, demonstrates an innate ability to adapt his knowledge, talent and worldliness to every aspect of his art and work. He is an accomplished bandleader and has served as sideman to an impressive list of NYC’s top musicians, including Winard Harper, Christian McBride, Wallace Roney, Billy Hart, Antonio Hart, Billy Harper, Houston Person, Charenee Wade, Norman Simmons, Don Braden, Vince Ector, Melissa Walker, Bruce Williams, and Cecil Brooks III. He has performed at venues from NYC jazz clubs Smalls; Fat Cat, The Jazz Standard, and Dizzy’s at Jazz at Lincoln Center, to Jazz Festivals across North America, South America and Europe. Ted received his MM from Rutgers University and studied with master trumpet teacher, William Fielder. From 2006-2011, he toured with the Tony Award-winning show, Jersey Boys. In addition to his performance activities, Ted is currently Adjunct Professor of Jazz Trumpet at Princeton University, as well as Jazz House Kids, Vice President of Jazz Education and Associate Producer. He is a member of the artistic leadership and production team responsible for curating all events for the Montclair Jazz Festival. He has led tours, master classes, and cultural exchange programs across the US as well as the globe from Peru to most recently Bahrain. Along with his wife, Rachel Ryll, Ted is co-owner, President and Artistic Director of “The Statuary” an active artist live/work/present space that serves as a hub for the local jazz community and presents world-class jazz to the people of Jersey City.

Vocalist, educator, bandleader Michelle Lordi has received international accolades and heavy rotation on jazz/AAA radio stations in the US and abroad for her jazz and genre bending recording projects. Lordi has performed in jazz clubs, festivals and performance venues all across the US and in Europe, including Birdland, Smoke (NYC), Le Duc des Lombards (Paris), The Jazz Cruise (FLA), World Café Live, Mann Music Center, The Kimmel Center (PA). Her albums have garnered favorable reviews in Downbeat, JazzTimes, Jazziz (US), Jazz Journal, JazzWise (UK), JazzLife & Jaz.In (Japan). Lordi’s music has been featured by NPR Music and on Fresh Air With Terry Gross. Whether Lordi is performing american songbook standards with jazz legends such as Houston Person, exploring experimental soundscapes in her original music or delivering her taut, mesmerizing interpretations of pop ballads, a profound love of the music she chooses to sing and the musicians she creates with is evident in every note of her vividly expressive and elegantly communicative voice. Lordi brings an innate ability for insightful connection, creativity, and artistic collaboration that has been honed on the bandstand to her teaching to draw out the best performances in her students.

Guitarist Miles Okazaki is a NYC-based guitarist originally from Port Townsend, a small seaside town in Washington State. His approach to the guitar is described by the New York Times as “utterly contemporary, free from the expectations of what it means to play a guitar in a group setting — not just in jazz, but any kind. ” His sideman experience over the last two decades covers a broad spectrum, from standards to experimental music (Kenny Barron, John Zorn, Stanley Turrentine, Dan Weiss, Matt Mitchell, Steve Coleman, Jonathan Finlayson, Jane Monheit, Amir ElSaffar, Darcy James Argue, and many others). He has released nine albums of original compositions over the last 12 years on the Sunnyside, Pi, and Cygnus labels. In 2018 Okazaki received wide critical acclaim for his six-album recording of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, an unprecedented project that Nate Chinen called “the six-string equivalent of a free solo climb up El Capitan. ” That year, Okazaki was voted the #1 rising star guitarist in the Downbeat Magazine critic’s poll. Other projects include a longstanding duo with drummer Dan Weiss, a duo with percussionist Rajna Swaminathan, and a published book, Fundamentals of Guitar, with Mel Bay. He taught guitar and rhythmic theory at the University of Michigan from 2013-22, joined the faculty at Princeton University in 2021, and holds degrees from Harvard University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School.

Jazz has famously been described as the sound of surprise, but pianist Sumi Tonooka makes a vivid case for the way jazz careers can evolve in astonishing directions. As a veteran improviser, the Philadelphia pianist, composer, and bandleader knows all about navigating unexpected twists and turns on the bandstand. Now she’s in the midst of an unanticipated career swerve that has taken her deep into new territory as a composer.

For much of her career Tonooka (pronounced To-NO-O-ka) has thrived in the trio context, performing around the world with a series of consummate ensembles that were often anchored by bass maestro Rufus Reid. But over the past decade she’s been awarded a series of increasingly ambitious commissions involving leading chamber ensembles, symphonies and fellow jazz explorers. It’s a development that she “didn’t see coming,” Tonooka says. “Now I’m smitten with the orchestra, the sound potential. I’m realizing that I have something I can bring to this tradition.”

In many ways 2023 has been a banner year for Tonooka. She was named a 2023 recipient of a prestigious Pew Fellowship. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra premiered her “Only the Midnight Sky and Silent Stars,” a work commissioned by the Emerging Black Composers Project. And after the in-person premiere of “Under the Surface” with the Alchemy Sound Project collective at The Painted Bride in Philadelphia, she toured the West Coast with the jazz chamber ensemble. The work and tour were supported by a Chamber Music America, New Jazz Works Grant and South Arts Jazz Roads grant.

Matthew Parrish, Bass: Born in the heart of central California, Matthew Parrish emerged from a musical upbringing fueled by hard work and a deep love for jazz. He embodies the very essence of jazz bass performance, captivating audiences with his electrifying talent and magnetic stage presence.

Matthew’s illustrious career is studded with collaborations that read like a who’s who of jazz legends. From sharing the stage with luminaries such as Regina Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Paquito D’Rivera to recording alongside Houston Person, Clark Terry, and Etta Jones, he has left an indelible mark on the music industry. The list goes on, including Miri Ben-Ari, James Williams, Harry Sweets Edison, James Newton, Gary Thomas, Greg Osby, Stefon Harris, and Orrin Evans, among countless others, each encounter further fueling his artistic fire.

His virtuosity on the bass, characterized by a beautiful, warm, and intricate sound, has earned him an unparalleled reputation as a performer, composer, arranger, and producer. Critics and peers alike hail him as a true luminary in the jazz community, recognizing his ability to effortlessly transport listeners to new sonic landscapes with his mesmerizing melodies and pulsating rhythms.

Matthew’s quest for musical excellence knows no bounds, taking him to stages around the globe. From the hallowed jazz clubs of New York City to the vibrant metropolis of Sao Paulo, his name has become synonymous with extraordinary performances that leave audiences breathless and begging for more.

Currently, Matthew finds himself immersed in a whirlwind of thrilling projects and touring engagements. He is a vital member of the enthralling Ute Lemper’s ensemble, sharing the stage with the iconic Ruth Naomi Floyd, Michelle Lordi, and the incomparable Orrin Evans. The legendary saxophonist Houston Person is another esteemed collaborator, whose musical chemistry with Matthew transcends boundaries. Additionally, he is an integral part of the dynamic Vana Gierig Trio, featuring the extraordinary talents of the renowned Paquito D’Rivera.

Matthew Parrish’s journey is a testament to the power of passion, dedication, and a relentless pursuit of artistic excellence. Through his magnetic performances and infectious energy, he continues to reshape the boundaries of jazz, leaving an indelible mark on the music world. With every note he plays, Matthew invites audiences into a realm where music transcends time and place, igniting a fire within their souls that will burn forever.

Professional Drummer, Composer/Arranger, Accompanist, Educator, and Twitch Streamer, Dom Palombi, has been thriving the musical journey for 17 years. After finishing a bachelor’s degree of Jazz Performance at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, Dom has been fortunate to perform, educate, and explore a multitude of opportunities as a full-time musician. Some of the many accomplishments Dom’s achieved so far includes his two albums that he published and produced independently: “As The Sun Rises” an all original Jazz-Fusion album and “Game Night!” a Funk-Fusion Video Game Music album featuring some of the biggest names/bands on the internet and video game music scene.

Grammy award-winning Musician, Composer, Bandleader, Recording Artist, Educator and Activist Roxy Coss has become one of the most unique and innovative Saxophonists on the scene. Winner of the 2022 Downbeat Critics’ Poll “Rising Star” category in Soprano Saxophone, an ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award, Jazziz Magazine listed her an “Artist to Watch,” and she received the Hothouse Magazine & Jazzmobile “Tenor Saxophone” Award. She is the Founder and President of Women In Jazz Organization (WIJO), Co-Artistic Director of the Brubeck Jazz Summit, and a Visiting Fellow for the Think Tank at Wesleyan University’s Bailey College of the Environment ‘24-’25. Starting in September 2025, Roxy will be joining Stony Brook University as Assistant Professor of Music in the role of Director of Jazz Studies. She is also an endorsing artist for P. Mauriat, Vandoren, and Keyleaves products.

Roxy has been a fixture on the New York scene for over fifteen years, and has also performed extensively around the world, including headlining major festivals and venues like the Newport Jazz Festival, Sopot Jazz Festival, Melbourne Big Band Festival, Winter Jazz Fest, BRIC Jazz Fest, Earshot Jazz Festival, Oregon Coast Jazz Party, San Jose Jazz Summerfest, Ballard Jazz Festival, Music Mountain Festival, Spokane Falls Jazz Festival, Midwest Clinic, The Appel Room at JALC, Jazz Standard, Jazz Showcase, Rockwood Music Hall, 55 Bar, The Django, The Nash, The Royal Room, Triple Door, Black Cat, Merriman’s Playhouse, Side Door Cafe, South Jazz Parlor, Frankie’s, Vibrato, Red Poppy Art House, Cafe Stritch, Palace Theater, Libby’s Jazz Club, Zinc Bar, Cornelia Street Cafe, and Smalls, among others. Her band, the Roxy Coss Quintet, has held residencies at New York City clubs including SMOKE Jazz Club and Club Bonafide. Roxy was also a featured guest musician on the television show Harry (host Harry Connick, Jr.) in 2017.

Roxy has six recordings out as a bandleader. Her latest, Disparate Parts, was released March 2022 on the Outside in Music label. It features her longtime working band, the Roxy Coss Quintet, playing a suite of music composed by Coss, and two additional original compositions of Roxy’s, as well as originals from the other band members. This is the follow-up to their previous album, Quintet, recorded live in the studio (OiM) released in 2019. In 2018, Coss released her fourth album as a leader, The Future Is Female, follow-up to Chasing the Unicorn (2017), both on Posi-Tone. The Future Is Female received a 4.5-Star Review from both Downbeat and All About Jazz, and Chasing the Unicorn made the “Best of 2017” lists in Downbeat, Somethin’ Else Reviews, and Ken Franckling’s Jazz Notes. Past albums also include Restless Idealism on Origin Records (2016), and Roxy Coss (2010), her self-released debut and self-titled album.

Coss has performed and recorded as a side musician with Jazz greats and luminaries including Clark Terry, Louis Hayes, Rufus Reid, Billy Kaye, Houston Person, Bill Charlap, Claudio Roditi, Jeremy Pelt, Willie Jones III, Geoffrey Keezer, Ken Peplowski, Mike Pope, and bands such as Darcy James Argue’s “Secret Society”, the Mingus Big Band, Birdland Big Band, and The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra. She has been a member of The Diva Jazz Orchestra since 2010, including an Off-Broadway run with Maurice Hines is Tappin’ Thru Life. Past performance experience also includes appearances with Wynton Marsalis, Buster Williams, Joshua Redman, Joe Lovano, Mulgrew Miller, Harry Allen, Steve Wilson, Mark Gross, Gary Smulyan, Harold Mabern, Jerry Vivino, and Eric Marienthal, among others.

Roxy is the Founder and President of Women In Jazz Organization, a collective of over 500 professional jazz musicians and composers who identify as women or gender non-binary. WIJO intends to help level the playing field, so that women and non-binary people have equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to the jazz community, leading to an improved and more rich, diverse, and successful art form. The organization is committed to honoring Black Americans as the creators of jazz. WIJO is largely a New York-based organization, with connections to other individuals and groups nationally and internationally. The organization aims to empower the individuals within, as well as come together to empower the larger community of jazz musicians who identify as women or non-binary as a whole. Members of the organization work to address inequalities in jazz culture to change the landscape of the current jazz scene. The organization also works to improve the perceptions and treatment of women and non-binary people in jazz from outside the jazz community.

Roxy has previously served on the board of directors for the Jazz Education Network (JEN) (2018-2024), and on faculty as a jazz ensemble coach and a jazz saxophone studio professor at The Juilliard School (2018-2024). She has also served as an Artist-in-Residence at Arizona State University’s jazz department (2019-2023). As an educator, she has over 20 years of experience with students of all ages, leading a private instruction studio. She has been a featured guest artist, leading masterclasses, clinics, and workshops around the world, including at the Sopot Jazz Festival, Berklee College of Music, The New School, University of North Texas, Georgetown University, University of Manitoba, Western Michigan University, Purdue University, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ithaca College, Queens College, Trinity College, Portland State University, Northwestern, Colorado State University, Tucson Jazz Institute, The Jazz Academy of Music and Seattle’s JazzEd. Roxy has served as an adjudicator for festivals including the Northern Arizona University, Sleepy Hollow and Bellevue High School Jazz Festivals, and for competition programs such as the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Jazz Composition Competition and the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition. She has performed extensively with teaching programs such as Jazz For Young People at JALC, Let Freedom Swing! at JALC, Jazz and Business Leadership Workshops at JALC, JazzReach led by Hans Shuman, and Generation Vandoren. Previous faculty positions also include Jazz Faculty at The New School and Borough of Manhattan Community College, Adjunct Woodwind Teacher at Ramapo High School in NJ, Director of Jazz Ensemble at Beacon High School in NYC, and faculty at William Paterson University Summer Jazz Workshop, and New York Summer Music Festival.

As a composer, Roxy has compositions recorded on her six records released as a bandleader, as well as Jeremy Pelt’s “Face Forward, Jeremy” (HighNote). She has collaborated with her mother, Seattle-based visual artist Mary Coss, to create the soundtrack entitled Eternal, for an exhibition at METHOD Gallery (Traces, 2015). She was also commissioned by the NYC-based Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company to write the score for Breaking, a one-man dance piece (2009), as well as Tribe, a full-length dance show choreographed on commission by the Holocaust Museum of New York City (2010).

Roxy first started playing piano at the age of five, where she learned the basics of music theory, composition, and ear training through the Robert Pace method. She picked up the alto saxophone at age nine, and fell in love with Jazz by eleven, playing tenor saxophone in her middle school jazz band under the tutelage of Robert Knatt. Roxy graduated in 2004 from Garfield High School, where she toured and performed internationally with the world-renowned GHS Jazz Ensemble, led by Clarence Acox. Roxy went on to William Paterson University, where she attended on a full scholarship, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2008, with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies/Performance. In 2011, she was chosen to participate in both the prestigious Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Residency Workshop at the Kennedy Center, and the acclaimed Steans Institute Jazz Program at the Ravinia Festival, where she worked closely with Rufus Reid, Curtis Fuller, Nathan Davis, George Cables, and David Baker. Roxy has also studied saxophone privately with Rich Perry, Gary Smulyan, Donny McCaslin, and Mark Taylor, composition with Rich DeRosa, improvisation with Harold Mabern, Armen Donelian, and Bill Mobley, and flute/composition with Anne Drummond.

Warren Wolf is a multi-instrumentalist from Baltimore, Maryland.

Warren is an International touring musician and has performed throughout the United States of America, South America, Canada, Italy, Spain, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Scotland, London, Greece, Singapore, Thailand, Jarkata, Bangkok, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow and many other countries.

Warren has made ten recordings, most notably for Mack Ave Records. Warren is a member of the SFJAZZ Collective and Christian McBride & “Inside Straight”. Warren is a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD & the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in San Francisco, CA.

A leading guitarist of his generation, Grammy Award winning “Matthew  Stevens’ singular style dissolves the demarcation lines between jazz, rock  and ambient music.” (Mojo****) Stevens’ music is “honest and soulful”  (Pitchzfork) and is described as “music (that) advances the ideals of  modern jazz”. (WBGO)

In addition to his critically acclaimed solo albums, Woodwork, Preverbal, Pittsburgh and In Common 1, 2 and 3 with Walter Smith III, Stevens’ songs  and guitar playing are featured on over 70 recordings including those by  Christian Scott atunde Adjuah, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Douglas, Next Collective, Sean Jones, Linda May Han Oh, Harvey  Mason, and Anna B Savage.

Stevens has performed at top venues and festivals all over the world with  his groups as well as being a featured performer with artists from Chris Thile to Gustavo Dudamel. His performances have been lauded in  Billboard,The Fader, The Guardian, Guitar Player Magazine, Jazz Times,  Mojo, NPR, New York Times, Pitchfork, PopMatters, Stereogum, Vice  Noisey and more.

As a producer, Stevens worked on Esperanza Spalding’s groundbreaking  album Exposure, and her Grammy Award winning album 12 Little Spells. He also co – produced and performed on Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy nominated album Waiting Game and Grammy Award winning New  Standards. Most recently, Stevens produced I Am A Pilgrim, Doc Watson at  100, which features artists including Valerie June, Dolly Parton, Rosanne  Cash, Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Steve Earle.

Stevens is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston,  MA.