Superstar Esperanza Spalding will be highlighting this year’s Dominican Republic Jazz Festival, organizers announced this week.
The four-time Grammy award-winning Esperanza Spalding, one of the leading jazz artists today, will be joined by featured artists including Terri Lynne Carrington, the Patricia Zarate Quintet and the Big Band Conservatory of Santo Domingo, among others.
ESPERANZA SPALDING
This year’s festival will be its 20th annual edition after first debuting in 1997; it will run Nov. 8-12.
The free event will include four days of concerts in Santo Domingo, Santiago, Puerto Plata and Cabarete, respectively.
It will begin with a concert in Plaza España in the heart of Santo Domingo’s Colonial Zone.
VIP tickets are available, along with priority seating, complimentary beverages, and other perks.
Esperanza Emily Spalding is an American jazz bassist, cellist, singer, and songwriter.
Spalding was raised in Portland, Oregon and was a musical prodigy, playing violin in the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at age five.
Funk Your Fear
She was later both self-taught and -trained on a number of instruments, including guitar and bass.
Her proficiency earned her scholarships to Portland State University and the Berklee College of Music.
She has won four Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards, making her the first jazz artist to win the award.
Ms. Spalding is still enamored of Wayne Shorter’s harmonic depth and Stevie Wonder’s melodic lift, but her frame of reference has broadened in salutary ways: ‘Funk Your Fear’ ha(s) the serpentine gnarl of a Funkadelic anthem, and ‘Noble Nobles’ brazenly evoke(s) Hejira-era Joni Mitchell - NY Times
