ABOUT THIS SHOW
SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director and harpist Brandee Younger presents an exciting new set of compositions from her forthcoming album accompanied by a superb ensemble featuring acclaimed pianist Courtney Bryan and the 19-piece New Century Chamber Orchestra under the direction of bassist, composer, and producer Derrick Hodge. 

For this residency, Brandee Younger will be premiering custom merchandise made exclusively for this week of concerts at SFJAZZ, designed by and in collaboration with California based designer Marrisa Wilson.

ABOUT BRANDEE YOUNGER
Carrying on and expanding the tradition of pioneering jazz harpists Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, Brandee Younger made her public debut in 2007 as a grad student at NYU, when saxophonist Ravi Coltrane enlisted the then-23-year-old to participate in the memorial service for his mother Alice. A student of jazz great Jackie McLean, Younger has collaborated with artists from the worlds of jazz and hip hop, including Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Pharoah Sanders, Lauren Hill, and Common. In 2021 she released her Impulse! Records debut, Somewhere Different, which earned Younger a Best Instrumental Composition GRAMMY nomination for the track “Beautiful is Black,” making her the first Black woman nominated for this honor.

Younger’s 2023 Impulse! release Brand New Life honored the work of jazz harp icon Dorothy Ashby, and in 2024, she was the winner of an NAACP Image Award.

New Orleans native Courtney Bryan is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and composer-in-residency with Opera Philadelphia. “A pianist and composer of panoramic interests” (The New York Times), she has composed for orchestras and chamber groups all over the world collaborated with artists including Kara Lynch, Sharan Strange, and Branford Marsalis