FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Media – Leading Edges, 601.483.9810, [email protected] Performance – MSU Riley Center Box Office, 601.696.2200, [email protected]

Monterey Festival Brings Young Stars to MSU Riley Center on March 29

MERIDIAN, MS – A “once in a generation” singer headlines a stage full of young talent as the on Tour 2019 visits the MSU Riley Center on Friday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m.

Cécile McLorin Salvant earned that accolade from legendary jazz trumpeter . New Yorker magazine critic Fred Kaplan, reviewing her debut at New York’s Village Vanguard nightclub, raved: “She sang with perfect intonation, elastic rhythm, an operatic range from thick lows to silky highs. She had emotional range, too, inhabiting different personas in the course of a song, sometimes even a phrase.”

The tour celebrates the 60th anniversary of the revered California jazz festival with an all-star band that, says festival Artistic Director Tim Jackson, represents the future of jazz. Here are the other up-and-coming players coming to the Riley Center: • Bria Skonberg, a Canadian singer and trumpeter described by the Wall Street Journal as one of the “most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation” • Melissa Aldana, a tenor saxophonist and native of Chile who was the first female instrumentalist and first South American to win the International Competition • Christian Sands, a pianist and five-time Grammy Award nominee from New Haven, Connecticut, who is the tour music director • Jamison Ross, a drummer and vocalist from Jacksonville, Florida, who is also a Grammy nominee and a winner of the Thelonious Monk Competition • Yasushi Nakamura, a bassist from Japan by way of Seattle who earned a bachelor’s degree from and an artist diploma from the Juilliard School

Together, they will perform both jazz standards and new music that they themselves have written. If you love music, you just have to see this show.

For fans of: jazz standards, the Great American Songbook, up-and-coming jazz talent

Tickets are $43 and $37 at the MSU Riley Center Box Office, which is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Tickets can be purchased online at www.msurileycenter.com or by phone at 601.696.2200.

###