Home delivery plus 2021 SeRIeS VERONICA SWIFT PREMIERING FRI, MAY 28, 8pm (ET) STREAMING ON DEMAND THROUGH THU, JUN 3, 11:59pm (ET) Veronica Swift vocals with Mathis Picard Alexander Claffy piano Bass Chris Whiteman Kyle Poole guitar drums You and the Night and the Music Getting to Know You Ray’s Idea Music: Arthur Schwartz Music: Richard Rodgers Ray Brown, Gil Fuller, Lyrics: Howard Dietz Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II and Dizzy Gillespie How Lovely to be a Woman I’m Always Chasing Rainbows He Hit Me (And it Felt Like a Kiss) Music: Charles Strouse Music: Harry Carroll Music: Carole King Lyrics: Lee Adams Lyrics: Joseph McCarthy Lyrics: Gerry Goffin You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught You’re the Dangerous Type Sing Music: Richard Rodgers Music/Lyrics: Bob Dorough Music/Lyrics: Amanda Palmer Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II (Arr. Steven Feifke) This Bitter Earth Music/Lyrics: Clyde Otis More Info, Series Sales, and Donations: WashingtonPerformingArts.org 1 from the artist This show for Washington Performing Arts is not see a light that points towards a fuller sense of only a comeback after a year-long hiatus of no self. As a result, the songs I’ve picked for this gigs, but it is a rebirth. Originally, I was planning show encompass some of This Bitter Earth’s on performing my new album, This Bitter Earth message, but we have also included new songs in its entirety, however, I find that after a whole that mix classical with rock and roll, funk, and two years of playing these songs and recording jazz. I now know my purpose as an artist is to them, then releasing them into the world, I see break down these genre barriers and fully the necessity for growth and change. That is immerse the audience in what to me is just what the record is striving for—from all of us. simply: music. After a journey through the dark conversations – Veronica Swift on racism, sexism, fake news, and hypocrisy, I from the host The first thing to say about Veronica Swift is, of needs from all of them. The same is true of her course, that she’s an expert singer, with a very familiarity with the great jazz instrumentalists wide emotional and expressive range. She excels and male singers. at a great variety of styles, moods, and lyrical What I can’t help commenting on, though, is the statements. The two things that have made fact that she put in all the tough work to become her so proficient are very much related—her a skilled, first-rate vocalist and acquired all that discipline and her knowledge. She has put in the knowledge at a very young age. It makes her hard work not only of intense vocal preparation, achievement all the more remarkable. Combine but also of learning the repertoire and grand it with her terrific willingness to work out ideas tradition of jazz and pop singers that developed and try new things, and she has all the attributes alongside the creation of the classic American of a wonderful collaborator. It’s a pleasure and Popular Songbook. an honor to work with her. As you’d expect, Veronica’s studied the jazz I can’t wait for this Home Delivery Plus per- greats, and knows the work of Ella Fitzgerald, formance, to experience the very latest state of Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, Sarah Vaughan, the art of Veronica Swift. Dinah Washington, and others thoroughly. Beyond that, though, you can ask her about – Murray Horwitz Jo Stafford, Vicki Carr, Aretha Franklin, Linda Murray Horwitz is a Tony Award–winning play- Ronstadt, Peggy Lee, and more contemporary wright, lyricist, and broadcaster, as well as an singers such as Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse, Artist-in-Residence at Washington Performing and she really knows their work inside and out, Arts. (See page 4 for complete bio.) has thought about them, and has taken what she 2 about the artists Still relatively early in dance idiom and now focuses on sharing that her professional career, passion globally, whether with his orchestra, Veronica Swift has Mathis Sound Orchestra (forthcoming debut already developed an im- album, World Unity), his solo project (forth- pressive repertoire. Raised coming debut album, Live at the Museum) or in Charlottesville, Virginia his emerging quartet, The Elements. by her parents—pianist When not performing his music, Picard has had Hod O’Brien and singer the honor of sharing the stage with artists such Stephanie Nakasian—she recorded her first as Mwenso & The Shakes, Braxton Cook, Ron album, Veronica’s House of Jazz, when she Carter, Lee Ritenour, Jason Moran, CROWN, was only nine years old. In addition to perform- Kindness, and Wynton Marsalis. ing with her parents, Swift sang and played trumpet with Dave Adams’s The Young Razzcals Chris Whiteman (guitar) began playing guitar at Jazz Project, which afforded her the opportunity age 12. He studied classical guitar performance to perform at the Telluride Jazz Festival. at Virginia Commonwealth University and jazz After releasing her sophomore album, It’s Great performance at the University of Miami, where to Be Alive, when she was only 11 years old, he received his Bachelor of Music (studio music Swift continued performing at major venues and jazz) and Master of Music (jazz pedagogy). such as Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Whiteman was the graduate teaching Lincoln Center in New York City. After high assistant for the Jazz Guitar Department, and school, she attended the University of Miami, played in the Grammy-nominated UM Concert where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Jazz Band. Eventually joining the UM faculty as 2016. a full-time lecturer, he taught small ensembles, improvisation classes, and private lessons, and Before college graduation, Swift competed in held the title of Acting Director of Jazz Guitar the 2015 Thelonious Monk International Vocal Studies. Competition, in which she placed second. Two years later, she moved to New York City to Whiteman has performed throughout the further her career and has since performed United States and Europe, worked with and/or toured with a host of jazz luminaries, Grammy-winning artists and producers, com- including trumpeters Wynton Marsalis and posed music for film, and taught thousands of Chris Botti, and pianists Benny Green, Michael guitar lessons during his more than 20 years Feinstein, and Emmet Cohen. as a musician. He is currently a signature artist arranger for Musicnotes.com, the world Mathis Picard (piano), born in 1995, is a leader in digital sheet music, as well as a French-Malagasy pianist, composer, producer, freelance arranger for SheetMusicPlus.com. and bandleader whose music warps time. His latest recording project is a collaboration Rooted in the tradition of live acoustic with jazz guitar legend Royce Campbell, enti- per formance while incorporating the latest tled The Campbell/Whiteman Project. musical technology, Picard has created his own style that merges electronic bass music, jazz, Alexander Claffy (bass) was raised in a musical classical, and stride piano. household—his father is a pianist, his mother, a vocalist—and had many of his earliest lessons Picard, who began playing at age three, was on bandstands in the heart of Philadelphia. immediately passionate about music from the As a teenager, Claffy was fortunate enough to 3 find a mentor in many Philadelphians, and has his drums take him. Along with his band of continued his study of the double bass with fellow New York jazz upstarts, aptly titled “Poole some of the world’s finest musicians, including & the Gang,” Poole has performed in New York’s Ron Carter, Dwayne Burno, and Orin O’Brien. most esteemed jazz clubs—notably Dizzy’s Since moving to New York City in 2011, he has Club Coca-Cola and SMOKE Jazz—culminating had the honor of working with many of his in a weekly residency at Small’s Jazz Club, living heroes, including Jimmy Cobb, Louis lasting nearly three years. One of Poole’s chief Hayes, Harold Mabern, Kurt Rosenwinkel, missions is to expand jazz’s audience by Christian Scott, Joey Alexander, Wallace Roney, incorporating all dance styles of music, reach- and many more. In the past three years, he has ing back to ragtime & bebop while forging recorded for the Verve, HighNote, Positone, ahead to funk, hip hop, and beyond. With RopeADope, and LaReserve record labels. the constant fluctuation of genre, rhythm, and harmony, “Poole & the Gang” connects these Hailed by Jazz Speaks as a “young prodigious musical dots in a uniquely improvised fashion, drummer,” Los Angeles–native Kyle Poole while audiences worldwide are delighted to (drums) has been residing in New York City simply “go with the flow.” since 2011 and continues to impress wherever about the host Murray Horwitz is a Tony show, An Evening Of Sholom Aleichem, and Award–winning playwright, co-creating the Mark Twain Prize in American lyricist, and broadcaster, who Humor at the Kennedy Center. In 2016, he has been called “my first became host and producer of The Big Broadcast mentor” by Hamilton creator on WAMU 88.5 FM in Washington, and in Lin-Manuel Miranda. His 2017, he was named Artist in Residence at accomplishments include Washington Performing Arts. His other awards originating the NPR comedy quiz Wait, Wait… include three Peabody Awards and the Order Don’t Tell Me, co-authoring the hit Broadway of Arts and Letters from the government of musical Ain’t Misbehavin’, writing song lyrics France. A graduate of Kenyon College, he began for John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby at The his career as a Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Metropolitan Opera, touring in his one-man Circus clown.