Chelsea Music Festival Finale | JazzPlasticity with Helen Sung

Chelsea Music Festival celebrates its 15th season with nine evenings of concerts, conversation, and tastings with musicians, visual artists, chefs from June 21-29, 2024 — festival tickets are on sale now! This summer Festival, led by Artistic Directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur presents “Connecting the Dots,” which traces how music and art allow us to touch what seems intangible, repair what seems broken, and reimagine our interconnectedness with one another. The Festival will focus on the restorative powers of the arts as we examine ways that music and art both calm and reinvigorate the brain and nervous system. We will also explore together various neurological challenges and changes we can encounter in ourselves and our loved ones. For more information and ticketing, visit https://www.chelseamusicfestival.org/2024/connectingthedots.

For our Jazz Finale, we are thrilled to bring celebrated jazz pianist Helen Sung back to the Festival stage for JazzPlasticity, a program inspired by the wonders of the brain and Sung’s time as the jazz artist-in-residence at the Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute. She brings her stellar ensemble with her this evening– percussionist Donald Edwards, saxophonist John Ellis, bassist Vicente Archer, and DJ Logic. Come and be a part of this concert recorded live in Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for a future Chelsea Music Festival Records release!

https://www.chelseamusicfestival.org/2024/connectingthedots/events/reimagined-gems-5h3df-pm842

At intermission, Helen Sung will be joined by Professor of Psychology and Principal Investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, Dr. Sarah M. N. Woolley for a special conversation discussing jazz music inspired "by the birds." Dr. Woolley's research of song birds is helping decode how the brain interprets sound -- and what happens during development when those sounds are disrupted. Listen as the two discuss how Dr. Woolley’s research impacted Sung’s writing of Jazz Plasticity.

Following the concert, celebrate the closing of our 15th season with a reception curated by 2024 Culinary Artist-in-Residence Rachel Snyder.

"...what is undeniable is that this was piano playing at a quite unbelievably jaw-dropping level."
– London Jazz News

FEATURING

Helen Sung Quartet
Piano | Helen Sung
Saxophone | John Ellis
Bass | Vicente Archer
Percussion | Donald Edwards
DJ Logic

Intermission Speaker | Dr. Sarah Woolley (Zuckerman Institute)

*Program subject to change

Chelsea Music Festival is a proud partner of Steinway Pianos.

ABOUT THE CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL

Chelsea Music Festival celebrates great music by convening world-leading musicians & artists in the performing, culinary, and visual arts for an international audience. The Festival invites artists, composers, and performers to collaborate in pursuit of new perspectives in artistic expression. Inspired by its Chelsea roots, the Festival reflects the creativity of one of New York City's most dynamic neighborhoods. Programs span musical genres ranging from classical to contemporary to jazz with a special emphasis on Festival commissions by composers whose works are not in the traditional western canon. In addition, the Festival hosts an online library of recordings so music enthusiasts, artists, and students alike can explore unique interpretations of classical, jazz, and contemporary works via high-quality videos of world-class performances. Since 2010, the Festival has established itself as a critically-acclaimed, accessible and interactive gateway to chamber music in non-traditional concert spaces such as art galleries, public squares, schools, and churches. Programming includes concerts, lectures, exhibitions, family events, and free outreach performances. In 2020, the Festival inaugurated its Online Encores and Online Originals YouTube series; Online Encores presents highlights from Festival archives while Online Originals presents new performances and recordings. We are proud to give emerging voices, particularly those of women and people of color, a stage and are working to build an audience and intimate community to support a new generation of musicians, composers, and artists. The Chelsea Music Festival Artistic Directors are Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur.