Shreveport, LA-born, Dallas, TX-raised, and now living in New York City, Tahira Clayton is a versatile and renowned vocalist known for her honest vocal delivery and mesmerizing stage presence. A powerful lyricist and storyteller, Tahira has performed nationally and internationally as a band leader, featured vocalist, and background vocalist. Tahira headlined IMG Artists “Bessie, Billie, Nina: Pioneering Women in Jazz,” a 3 month national tour, music directed by Carmen Staaf. She fronted the Caili O’Doherty Quintet throughout the countries of Georgia and Canada on an American Music Abroad tour serving as a cultural diplomatic ambassador of the United States. Tahira has joined several “Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents:” tours as a featured vocalist including, “Songs We Love,” a national tour; 100 years of Disney, a national tour. In 2023, Tahira co-headlined Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents: “Sing and Swing” for a residency in Saudi Arabia. Also in 2023, she was featured on Danny Jonokuchi’s album “VOICES,” celebrating the current generation of jazz vocalists in NYC. In May 2024, Tahira became an ambassador of the National Jazz Museum of Harlem and leader of one of their three house bands. Tahira’s long standing collaboration with AMP Trio has produced 3 albums. Tahira opened for Alicia Keys at the AMFAR Gala in Antibes, France performing a Josephine Baker tribute. Additionally and currently, Tahira is a backing vocalist for Zayn Malik of One Direction.

In addition to her performing, Tahira currently serves as the vice president and is a founding board member of the Women in Jazz Organization (WIJO), based in NYC. Tahira is also program director for WIJO’s mentorship program, WIJO Mentors. In addition to her work with WIJO, Tahira has traveled internationally to present lectures on her research entitled, “The Dangers of Jazz: Sexism in Society.” A 2015 graduate of the University of NorthTexas Tahira has performed and participated in master classes of many Jazz greats. Tahira’s debut album of all original compositions, “Wait, Till Now” was a fully crowd-sourced project, funded by fans and peers. “Wait, Till Now” is currently available for purchase and streaming.

Tahira has led groups and performed in prestigious venues such as Dizzy’s Coca Cola Club (Jazz at Lincoln Center), Sony Music Hall, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, The 55 Bar, Minton’s Playhouse, The Rainbow Room, Cornelia Street Café, the Cell Theater, Birdland Theatre, the JazzShowcase (Chicago), and in 2021 opened for Alicia Keys in Antibes, France. As well as being an in-demand bandleader and performer, Tahira is a sought after side-woman, lending her voice to numerous original music recording projects, performances, and songwriting collaborations. Tahira is a well established creative teaching artist. More at www.tahiraclayton.com 

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Morgan Guerin is a genre-fluid multi-instrumentalist and composer whose music merges jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and experimental sounds into a dynamic and immersive experience. Raised in a musical family near New Orleans before moving to Atlanta, he developed his craft from a young age on drums, saxophone, flute, bass clarinet, EWI, bass, keys, synthesis, and engineering, later studying at The New School in NYC. Guerin has performed with renowned artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Tyshawn Sorey, and Esperanza Spalding, and his work has contributed to two GRAMMY-winning albums. His latest release, Tales Of The Facade, is a deeply personal project that reflects on identity, technology, and social change, featuring a fusion of lush harmonies, intricate grooves, and compelling narratives. Recognized by The New York Times as a “wunderkind,” Guerin continues to break musical boundaries while crafting a sound that resonates across generations.

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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Tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis has emerged as a leading figure on the improvised music scene in New York City and across the world. The winner of seven DownBeat magazine awards (including "artist of the year" in the 2025 critics' poll), and a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship, Lewis has led ensembles on some of the most prominent stages across the world, from the Village Vanguard to the Bimhuis Muziekgebouw.

He has received accolades from The New York Times, NPR Music and countless other outlets. The late Sonny Rollins called Lewis is a "promising young player with the potential to do great things, having listened to the Elders."

A native of Buffalo, New York, Lewis grew up in the church and attended the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts. He received an undergraduate degree from Howard University, where he studied and worked with the likes of Geri Allen, Benny Golson, Bill Pierce and Wallace Roney. After graduation, Lewis moved to Colorado and became part of the gospel music community there, joining the band of Albertina Walker. He later earned a master's of fine arts degree from CalArts, where he studied with Vinny Golia, Charlie Haden, Alphonso Johnson and Wadada Leo Smith. Lewis relocated to New York City in 2012, and since then he has become known as one of the leading figures on the scene, uniting his background in gospel and jazz with an interest in Western classical music, hip-hop, punk rock, other music traditions from around the globe, and art forms outside of music.

For years he led an acclaimed punk-jazz outfit, the James Brandon Lewis Trio, and was a founding member of Heroes Are Gang Leaders, the American Book Award-winning poetry and music ensemble. Lewis's debut solo album, Divine Travels, featuring bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver, was released in 2014 on OKeh Records. The following year, that 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. Since then, Lewis's many releases have included Radiant Imprints (2018), a duo record with drummer Chad Taylor;  An UnRuly Manifesto (2019), leading a quintet that included the late trumpeter Jaimie Branch, guitarist Anthony Pirog, bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Warren G. Crudup III; and Molecular (2020), a studio date with pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and Taylor on drums, which premiered Lewis’ new compositional strategy, "Molecular Systematic Music," and introduced a quartet that has now released a half-dozen albums of its own.

Lewis's celebrated ework with another intergenerational combo, his Red Lily Quintet — Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Chris Hoffman on cello, Parker on bass, and Taylor on drums — has honored historical figures including George Washington Carver and Mahalia Jackson. His ongoing collaboration with the Washington, D.C.-based, improvising post-punk outfit the Messthetics has yielded two critically acclaimed albums on Impulse! Records. Lewis, whorecently earned a PhD in Creativity from the Rowan University in New Jersey, also works across mediums as a writer and poet.

Nate Lewis is a multi-disciplinary artist born and raised outside of Pittsburgh in the town of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, currently based in New York City. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from VCU, and practiced critical-care nursing in DC-area hospitals for nine years. Lewis’ first artistic pursuit was playing the violin in 2008, followed by drawing in 2010. Since 2017 he has lived and worked in New York City.

Lewis' work has been exhibited in Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary at the California African American Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Yale Center for British Art, 21 C Museum Hotels, Art Basel, The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, The Blanton Museum, with the Men of Change: Power, Triumph, Truth, exhibition with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services, Fridman Gallery, Vielmetter Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, Ziddoun Bossuyt. Past Residencies include Pioneer Works, Dieu Donne, Robert Blackburn printmaking,  a fellow at Art Hx at Princeton University.

Lewis' work is in the public collections of the Whitney Museum, The National Gallery of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Blanton Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Grinnell College Museum of Art, 21 C Museum Hotels, Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art in Cardiff, United Kingdom, International African American-Museum, Charleston, SC, Kadist Art Foundation, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro NC, Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, NY, Northwestern Art Museum, The Dean Collection.

He has lectured at Yale University as part of Claudia Rankine's Racial Imaginary Institute, The Yale Center for British Art, and Princeton University.

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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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. He has collaborated with artists including Herbie Hancock, Common, Robert Glasper, Sara Bareilles, Emily King, Toshi Reagon, Kyle Abraham, Bill T. Jones, Glenn Ligon, Anna Deavere Smith, Simone Leigh, Lalah Hathaway, and Chief Adjuah. His albums include The Transformations Suite, GRIEF, Venus Smiles Not in the House of Tears, and Black Spring.

Pinderhughes is the first-ever Art for Justice + Soros Justice Fellow and was MoMA’s 2025 Creative Resident. He is a recipient of Chamber Music America’s Visionary Award, APAP’s Spark of Change Award, and has won two Emmys. He has also been designated as a Creative Capital awardee, a United States Artist Fellow, 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.

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Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by the New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, always rooted in a strong sense of groove, has been featured in many distinguished ensembles over the years.

Reid released her debut recording as a bandleader in 2015, with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, a vibrant showcase for the cellist’s improvisational acumen as well as her dynamic arrangements and compositional ability. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in Oct 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as “fresh and transformative—its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid’s singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work.” In Spring 2024, Reid released the quartet’s 3rd album, 3+3, who Chris May writes for All About Jazz “is as transportingly good as jazz gets." 2026 saw the release of the quartet’s latest work on Out of Your Head Records, entitled dance! skip! hop!, which appeared on numerous best-of-2026 lists and was featured on NPR's Fresh Air.

Reid has been a key member of ensembles led by legendary reedists like Anthony Braxton (Zim Sextet) and Roscoe Mitchell (Roscoe Mitchell Quartet, Art Ensemble of Chicago), as well as a younger generation of visionaries including flutist Nicole Mitchell (Black Earth Ensemble, Artifacts), vocalist Dee Alexander (Evolution Ensemble), and drummer Mike Reed (Loose Assembly, Living By Lanterns, Artifacts) She is also a member of Tomas Fujiwara’s 7 Poets trio, Myra Melford’s Fire and Water, Dave Douglas’s Gifts Quintet, Craig Taborn Trio and Angelika Niescier’s Beyond Dragons. Other projects that Tomeka composes for is the Tomeka Reid Stringtet, an ensemble of improvising strings that varies in size from seven pieces to sixteen pieces with conductor, that explores her love of stringed instruments and rhythm and the Tomeka Reid Septet that began as a tribute to Duke Ellington’s 125th birthday.

In 2013, Reid launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a three-day international festival of cutting edge string players held in Chicago. 2026 will see its 12th iteration. From 2019 to 2021 Tomeka Reid received a teaching appointment at Mills College as the Darius Milhaud chair in composition. In 2022, she was the Artist in Residence for the Moers Jazz Festival, a Visiting Roth Scholar and visiting professor at Dartmouth College from 2023-25 and she received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2017. Tomeka is also a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and Herb Alpert awardee, a 2021 USA Fellow, and has received awards from the Foundation of the Contemporary Arts in 2019 and 3Arts in 2016.

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David Virelles is a pianist and composer whose work emerges from engagement with tradition. Raised in a musical family in Santiago de Cuba, he was immersed from an early age in Western classical training along with being exposed to the many Caribbean musical lineages converging in Santiago. In 2001, Virelles relocated first to Toronto and later on to New York City, where he became an integral voice in the city’s music community.

Virelles' music resists categorization. Rather than fusing styles, he draws from multiple lineages to form a highly personal and syncretic language, one shaped by continuity, research, and lived experience. This artistic vision was showcased in ORO, his interdisciplinary work commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered there in 2024, as well as his recent premiere Vaivén, commissioned by the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin in 2026.

Virelles has collaborated with an extraordinary range of artists across generations, including Henry Threadgill, Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman, Ravi Coltrane, Oliver Lake, Milford Graves, Mark Turner, Marcus Gilmore, Bill Frisell, Paul Motian, Chucho Valdés, Hermeto Pascoal, Terri Lyne Carrington and José Luis Quintana “Changuito,” among many others.

His recorded output reflects a wide artistic scope. His debut album Continuum (2012) was named the #1 album of the year by The New York Times. He has released three critically acclaimed recordings on ECM Records (Mbóko, Antenna, and Gnosis) each documenting distinct compositional and sonic inquiries. His ongoing series The Singer’s Grove honors the Cuban musical history; Volumes I and II were recorded in Santiago with local masters and named Best Latin Jazz Album by NPR in 2018.

Recent releases include Transformación del Arcoiris (Pi Recordings), NUNA (a solo piano work, winner of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Award) and Carta (Intakt Records). His latest release, The Singer’s Grove Vol. III, continues his exploration of archival Cuban material alongside original compositions for piano and synthesizers, recorded to wax cylinders. Virelles is a Steinway Artist and a Guggenheim Fellow.