Lisa Fischer sang for two decades with legendary vocalist Luther Vandross and released “So Intense”, earning her first Best R&B Performance Grammy with “How Can I Ease The Pain”. She joined the Rolling Stones for their 1989 Steel Wheels tour, and continued to grace their stage for the next 26 years. The 2013 Best Documentary Oscar winning film “Twenty Feet from Stardom” altered the course of Lisa’s musical journey, telling her story, with clips of her legendary duets with Sting or with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter”. Lisa set out on her own reinventing classic songs with her co-conspirators JC Maillard and Grand Baton. Their organic fusion of Caribbean psychedelic soul and jazzy progressive rock ignited Lisa’s flexibility and freedom of expression. Lisa’s passion for constant growth and experimentation with different styles invited recent collaborations with jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Michael McDonald, Eric Krasno, Talib Kweli, Billy Childs and YoYo Ma, the BBC Proms / Jules Buckley and the Metropole Orkest, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Anna Deavere Smith’s “Notes from the Field” for HBO, and especially her full evening program The Classic Lisa Fischer with Grand Baton and Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and the National Philharmonic.

Jazz pianist, composer, and performance artist Jason Moran is deeply invested in reassessing and complicating the relationship between music and language; his work is geared towards challenging the status quo while respecting the accomplishments of his predecessors. Moran graduated from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010 and is the Artistic Director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. Currently, Moran teaches at the New England Conservatory. Moran has recorded and performed with masters of the form including Charles Lloyd, Bill Frisell, and the late Sam Rivers, and his work with his trio The Bandwagon (with drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Tarus Mateen), which resulted in a profound discography for Blue Note Records. He also has collaborated with such major figures as Adrian Piper, Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Stan Douglas, Adam Pendleton, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker; commissioning institutions of Moran’s work include the Walker Art Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Dia Art Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Harlem Stage, and Jazz at Lincoln Center.