Aurora Nealand strives to live at the intersection of Lunatic and Librarian. She is part of the 2026 JGI New Orleans Jazz Cohort and a sound artist and multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, accordion, voice) based in New Orleans, LA .  She is deeply interested in the sonification of everyday objects and knowledge-generation through the stories and history that Sound (with a capital S) contains. Nealand is the leader of  The Royal Roses, the non-traditional Traditional Jazz band, which draws its approach to collective improvisation’s lineage, spanning from the New Orleans Early Jazz traditions, to the AACM, and collage-sound art and musique concrete. Nealand's other musical projects include The Monocle Ensemble - her original music project and installation ensemble, redrawblak Trio, Instigation Orchestra,  John Hollenbecks GEORGE, and the Danger Dangers.  In 2019/2020 she debuted KindHumanKind- a 90 minute fully staged theatrical show at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, based on her original music.  She is co-creator of the City Songs Project (created originally for Knoxvilles Big Ears Festival),  regularly works as a musical facilitator with Found Sound Nation -an organization which facilitates international musical collaboration, and she has been involved with the Walden School for Young Composers (as a teacher/performer) for 20 years.

Max Moran is a 2026 JGI New Orleans Jazz Cohort member and a Louisiana born musician and composer who has become a first-call bassist across several genres in New Orleans’ thriving music scene. Known for his versatility on electric bass, upright bass, and synthesizer, Moran provides a solid, soulful foundation to a number of classic and progressive bands. Performing since the age of thirteen, Max Moran spent over ten years as the bassist of jazz master Donald Harrison and has also shared the stage with artists such as Davell Crawford, Leo Nocentelli (The Meters), Bernie Worrell (Parliament/ Funkadelic), and Grammy nominees Christian Scott and Jamison Ross.

His band, Neospectric features a rotating cast of over a dozen of New Orleans' most exciting and virtuosic young instrumentalists whose collective sideman credits include Jonathan Batiste, Big Sam's Funky Nation, and Solange.

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Steve Lands is part of the 2026 JGI New Orleans Jazz Cohort. Hs is Baton Rouge-bred, New Orleans-based trumpeter and composer who’s had the distinct pleasure of performing with some of world’s greatest musicians, including touring and recording with the world-renowned Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Elvis Costello, Jazz at Lincoln Center alumni Herlin Riley, Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson, Victor Goines and Ronald Westray, Shannon “King of Tremé” Powell, Jason Marsalis, Evan Christopher, Grammy nominees Cyrille Aimée and Jamison Ross, Quiana Lynell, and most recently, PJ Morton. 

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As a composer, he’s scored the music for a handful of projects with filmmaker Marion Hill, including 2021’s Sundance Film Festival Award-winning feature, “Ma Belle, My Beauty.” 

Hot on the heels of two sold-out debut performances of his current signature project, “Rearranging the Planets” for the Spring 2022 season at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), Lands has since been presenting new movements from this body of original compositions, such as the project’s little sister, “KosmiKrewe” aka “Cosmic Roux.” 

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Learn More: https://www.thestevelands.space/

Tonya Boyd-Cannon is part of the 2026 JGI New Orleans Jazz Cohort. She is a woman who does not simply perform music - she channels it, shapes it, teaches it, and uses it as a conduit for restoration. A classically trained musician and nationally recognized educator, Tonya brings a depth and intentionality to her craft that transcends genre. Her signature sound places vibe, storytelling, and soul-centered expression at the heart of every performance. Whether she’s moving listeners through heart-stretching ballads or igniting crowds with jazz, funk, rock, gospel, or blues, Tonya refuses limitations - her music ebbs, flows, and expands the moment it touches the air.

As a vocal phenomenon, she has built an illustrious career marked by multiple singles, EPs, full-length albums, and dynamic collaborations. Each release showcases her vocal mastery and her commitment to creating music that is as healing as it is sonically rich.

Her work has consistently garnered praise from both media and critics, solidifying her as a beloved creative force.

Her performances span global stages from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival to Colombia’s Mompox Jazz Festival yet her impact reaches far beyond the venue. Tonya leaves an imprint on the spirit. Her voice lingers. Her message resonates. Her presence shifts the room.

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Victor Campbell is a 2026 JGI New Orleans Jazz Cohort member and a young jazz piano player hailing from Camagüey, Cuba. His compelling style combines virtuosity, whimsy, charisma and technical prowess.Notably, it is just plain fun to watch Victor perform. He started playing piano at age 5 and went on to train at Cuba’s National School of the Arts. He has since played all over the United States and internationally. Victor first visited New Orleans in 2012 as a teenager, part of an exchange program with the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp. That visit changed his life and in 2019 Victor decided to move to New Orleans. He has been feverishly studying all styles of New Orleans music ever since, and incorporating it into his own musical language. He can effortlessly transition from a blues solo, to a Cuban timba montuno, and then right into a classical piano selection. In a 2019 interview, the great Chucho Valdés predicted that “Victor will revolutionize Cuban jazz piano.”

Savannah Harris is a drummer, producer/arranger, and music director widely regarded as one of the foremost drummers of her generation. Equally fluent in the deep traditions of jazz and the genre-blurring language of contemporary Black music, she brings precision, ingenuity, and emotional depth to every project she undertakes. Harris has become a vital presence in today’s creative landscape, touring and recording with Christian McBride’s Ursa Major, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and jazz luminary Kenny Barron.

Her creative reach extends to her award-winning collaborative project ØKSE, whose debut earned a Deutscher Jazzpreis for Album of the Year. Harris’s wide-ranging recording work includes contributions to Helado Negro’s acclaimed albums Far In and Phasor, where her rhythmic sensitivity and textural awareness play a defining role. She is also a longtime member of Or Bareket’s Quartet, appearing on the albums Sahar and Yom, and she joins Angelika Niescier and Tomeka Reid on the adventurous trio release Beyond Dragons.

Harris also serves as music director for MIKE, shaping the rapper’s live sound with her distinct rhythmic identity. Continually expanding her artistic footprint, she stands at the forefront of a transformative new wave in modern music.

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Samora Pinderhughes is a composer, pianist, vocalist, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist known for striking intimacy and carefully crafted, radically honest lyrics alongside high-level musicianship. He is also known for using his music to examine sociopolitical issues and fight for change and works in the tradition of the black surrealists throughout the African Diaspora, those who bend word, sound, and image towards the causes of revolution. Pinderhughes is a prison and police abolitionist, an anti-capitalist, and an advocate for process over product.

As an artist, Pinderhughes’ goal is that people will LIVE DIFFERENTLY after experiencing what he makes—that it will affect how they think, how they act, how they relate to others, how they consider their daily relationships to their country and their world.

Pinderhughes is the first-ever Art for Justice + Soros Justice Fellow and a recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2020 Visionary Award. He has also been designated as a Creative Capital awardee, a Joe’s Pub / Public Theater NYC Artist-in-Residence, and a Sundance Composers Lab fellow. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and is currently getting his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry program under the direction of Vijay Iyer.

Pianist/ composer David Virelles grew up in a musical family in Santiago de Cuba, steeped in the music of the Afro - Caribbean diaspora and Western classical music. Having been invited to Canada by Jane Bunnett in 2001, Virelles relocated to Toronto. He eventually graduated from Humber College, where he taught after graduating. During his stay in Toronto, he worked extensively all over Canada with his own groups and as a sideman. Moving to the United States in 2009, David organically brings together Cuban folkloric and New York improvisational worlds, an interest that started when he was 14. While he views his work as “a hundred percent traditional,” drawing from multiple traditions, in practice, he is creating a syncretic new personal music, rather than a mixture of elements or a recreation. This vision was showcased in Virelles’ recent world premiere of his interdisciplinary piece ORO, commissioned by Carnegie Hall.

Besides his solo work, he has also worked with Bunnett, Henry Threadgill, Ravi Coltrane, Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman, Oliver Lake, Terri Lyne Carrington, Tomasz Stanko, John Patitucci, Bill Frisell, Román Díaz, Milford Graves, Chris Potter, Tom Harrell, Brandon Ross, Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Coleman, Mark Turner, Paul Motian, Marcus Gilmore, Changuito, Chucho Valdés, Hilario Durán, Stanley Cowell, Hermeto Pascoal and Juan Pablo Torres, among others.

David’s 2012 album Continuum ended up on many “Best Of The Year” lists, being selected #1 by The New York Times. He released three projects on the legendary label ECM to critical acclaim, documenting a wide artistic range – Mbóko, Antenna, and Gnosis. His release Igbó Alákorin (The Singer's Grove) Vol I & II is a celebration of the musical history of Santiago de Cuba. This record features Santiago music legends and it was recorded at the Siboney E.G.R.E.M. studios in this southeastern Cuban town. It was named Best Latin Jazz album by NPR in 2018. In 2020, Virelles released Transformación del Arcoiris with Pi Recordings, an electronic EP exclusively on the BandCamp platform. Virelles 2022 album NUNA (El Tivoli Music/ Pi Recordings), is an exploration of the solo piano setting. It was named one of the best albums of the year by different publications including The New York Times and NPR. It also won the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Award. His Carta release (Intakt Records) features David’s trio music with long time collaborators Ben Street and Eric McPherson. His most recent release is Igbó Alákorin (The Singer's Grove) Vol III.

Virelles is a Shifting Foundation Fellow, a recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts, Louis Applebaum Award, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Cristobal Díaz Ayala Travel Grant, Grand Prix de Jazz de Montreal General Motors and The Jazz Gallery Commission. He has been named #1 Rising Star in the Piano category by DownBeat Magazine, and Artist of the Year by Musica Jazz Magazine (Italy). While a student at Humber College in Toronto he won the Oscar Peterson Prize, presented by Peterson himself. He is a recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts and the CINTAS Fellowship in Music Composition. David is currently a professor at the Zürich University of the Arts. He has been a guest lecturer at residences at the Basel Jazz Campus and the Focus Year special program, CalArts, UCLA, Siena Jazz Summer Workshop, JazzDanmarks Summer Sessions, Amsterdam Conservatory, Fayetteville State University and Harvard University. He currently tours as a solo performer (on acoustic piano or electronics); his trio, and with groups including the Andrew Cyrille Quartet, Trio Imagination (a collective group with Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman), and the Ravi Coltrane Quartet of which he has been a member for the last 11 years.

In 2024 Virelles received a commission from Carnegie Hall. The commissioned multidisciplinary work, entitled Oro (featuring Dafnis Prieto) was premiered at Zankel Hall on May 24, 2024, as part of a program curated by Tania León.

Grammy Award-nominated saxophonist, composer, arranger, educator, philanthropist, humanitarian and entrepreneur Godwin Louis is a trailblazer in the world of music and beyond. Born in Harlem, New York, and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Port Au Prince, Haiti, his music taps all corners of  a multicultural background rooted in his Haitian heritage.​An acclaimed alto saxophonist, Louis has graced stages around the globe including: Mali, Senegal, Togo, France, Finland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Venezuela, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia and Australia. A graduate of Berklee College of Music and the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, Louis has studied and performed with Herbie Hancock, Clark Terry, Roger Dickerson, Ron Carter, Al Foster, Billy Preston, Patti LaBelle, Toni Braxton, Prince, Babyface, Madonna, Barry Harris, Howard Shore, Mulatu Astatke Mahmoud Ahmed, Wynton Marsalis and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, to name a few.

In addition, Louis has performed extensively as a sideman and guest soloist. As a composer and arranger, he received a Grammy nomination for his work on world-renowned vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant's album Mélusine; was awarded a Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Grant; and was named a 2013 Jazz Gallery Residency Commission recipient. Louis has cultivated a diverse musical palette, seamlessly blending jazz, gospel, classical, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and global sounds. His compositions serve as a testament to his creative depth, exploring the intersections of tradition and innovation.A professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, he has conducted clinics and master classes worldwide. The saxophonist also teaches at the summer music camps of the Connecticut jazz nonprofit BackCountry Jazz. His work as a humanitarian and ambassador includes his having traveled from Benin to China to help promote cross-cultural understanding and introduce thousands to America’s indigenous art form — jazz — through public concerts, master classes and jam sessions. He is the founder of Experience Ayiti, a nonprofit educational, multidisciplinary arts organization in Haiti.In 2021, The Godwin Louis Rooftop Club opened in Lomé, Togo. Located at El Doria Hotel, the location is dedicated to performances and educational programs that promote music education in Africa.​ Louis’s debut album as a leader, Global, was released in February 2019. His album Psalms and Proverbs will be released in August 2024 on the Blue Room Music label.

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"A rising presence on the scene, New York-based tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis has received accolades from The New York Times, NPR, and countless other news outlets for his disciplined ability to combine myriad stylistic influences into a singularly expressive approach. Sonny Rollins told Jazz Magazine that Lewis is a 'promising young player with the potential to do great things having listened to the Elders.' Lewis’ appreciation for the innovations of masters like Rollins, Coltrane, and Ayler is readily apparent in his melodic conflation of gospel, blues, R&B, modal jazz, and avant garde influences. Lewis was also recently voted Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist in Downbeat Magazine’s 2020 International Jazz Critic’s Poll.

"Born in Buffalo, New York, Lewis was raised in the church. He attended the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts and continued his studies at Howard University, where he worked with Geri Allen, Benny Golson, Bill Pierce, and Wallace Roney. After graduating, Lewis moved to Colorado where he joined the gospel music community, performing with Albertina Walker. He then attended CalArts, receiving a Master of Fine Arts degree after studying with Vinny Golia, Charlie Haden, Alphonso Johnson, and Wadada Leo Smith. A stint at the Banf Jazz Residency found him working with Dave Douglas, Tony Malaby, Joshua Redman, Hank Roberts, and Angelica Sanchez. Lewis eventually relocated to New York City in 2012.

"Lewis has released several critically acclaimed albums, leads numerous ensembles, and is the co-founder of American Book Award-winning poetry and music ensemble Heroes Are Gang Leaders. Moments, his debut album, was independently released in 2010. In marked contrast, Sony Masterworks’ revived OKeh imprint issued Lewis’ Divine Travels with bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver in 2014. The following year, the major label put out the concept album Days Of FreeMan, featuring Lewis at the helm of a trio featuring bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and drummer Rudy Royston. In 2018, Lewis and drummer Chad Taylor released the improvised Radiant Imprints on Belgium’s Off label. The following year, Lewis recorded An UnRuly Manifesto for Relative Pitch Records, leading a quintet that included trumpeter Jaimie Branch, guitarist Anthony Pirog, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Warren G. Crudup III. Intakt released Lewis and Taylor’s concert performance at Switzerland’s annual jazz festival as Live In Willisau in 2020, as well as Molecular, a studio quartet date with pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones, and Taylor on drums, which premiered Lewis’ new compositional strategy, 'Molecular Systematic Music.'

"Although unable to tour in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lewis wrote a suite of compositions inspired by the life and work of George Washington Carver. In the fall of 2020, he assembled the intergenerational Red Lily Quintet – Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Chris Hoffman on cello, Parker on bass, and Taylor on drums – to record while socially distanced at Park West Studios in Brooklyn. Named after Carver’s first vehicle used in the Tuskegee Institute’s Movable School program, in the liner notes for Jesup Wagon author Robin D. G. Kelley states that '... Lewis has composed a body of work that captures the essence of Carver’s life, work, and vision ... Lewis peels back the facade of the old, kindly man conjuring up new uses for peanuts, to reveal the artist, botanist, ecologist, aesthete, musician, teacher, and seer who anticipated our current planetary crisis.'"

‍— Troy Collins, Point of Departure