Grammy® and Tony Award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater puts her unique spin on standards and jazz classics. This fearless voyager, explorer, pioneer, and keeper of tradition will be joined by Bill Charlap, one of today’s leading jazz pianists. Together, for one incredibly special evening, they will explore a wide range of material with impeccable style, skill, and sensitivity, presented without the Nashville Symphony, on Sunday, March 9, 2025, 7:30 PM at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
Over the course of a multifaceted career spanning four decades, Grammy® and Tony Award – winning jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists, putting her unique spin on standards, as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics.
Dee. Bridgewater’s career has always bridged musical genres. She earned her first professional experience as a member of the legendary Thad Jones / Mel Louis Big Band, and throughout the 70s she performed with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie. After a foray into the pop world during the 1980s, she relocated to Paris and began to turn her attention back to Jazz.
Signing with the Universal Music Group as a producer (Bridgewater produces all of her CDs), Bridgewater released a series of critically acclaimed titles, all but one receiving Grammy® nominations. Bridgewater also pursued a parallel career in musical theater, winning a Tony Award for her role as ‘Glinda’ in “The Wiz” in 1975. Her other theatrical credits include “Sophisticated Ladies, “Black Ballad,” “Carmen,” “Cabaret” and the Off-Broadway and West End Productions of “Lady Day,” for which Bridgewater received the British Laurence Olivier Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.
Jazz meets classical as the multi-faceted pianist Aaron Diehl brings his trio for a rare performance of Mary Lou Williams’ “Zodiac Suite,” a suite of 12 pieces inspired by astrological signs and musicians born under them. Newcomer David Danzmayr opens his program with Golijov’s “Sidereus,” the composer’s depiction of Galileo’s celestial “Starry Messenger,” before delving into Schubert’s best-known work, the “Unfinished” symphony. The evening ends on a light note with Johann Strauss, Jr.’s “Emperor Waltzes” on Friday, March 14 and Saturday, March 15, 7:30 PM each evening at Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
Aaron Diehl has performed with musical giants such as Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tyshawn Sorey, and Philip Glass, and has been a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra, working with conductors like Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marin Alsop, and Alan Gilbert. In 2023, Diehl was named as the Artistic Director of 92NY’s Jazz in July Festival, succeeding the legendary Bill Charlap.
With an expansive, orchestral, lyrical approach to the piano that channels predecessors like Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum and Jelly Roll Morton, Diehl has headlined the Monterey, Detroit, and Newport Jazz Festivals, and had residencies at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard, SF Jazz, and many more.
