Overview
Host Terrance McKnight welcomes renowned composer Carlos Simon and special guests, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and cellist Seth Parker-Woods for an evening of performance and conversation around the release of Simon’s new recording, Together. This new project was created in the wake of the pandemic as an opportunity for Simon to collaborate with friends and musicians and make music with a message.
NPR called composer Carlos Simon “a young composer on the rise with an ear for social justice.” Simon’s music ranges from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism.
Simon is the Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY Award for his album, Requiem for the Enslaved. His new recording called Together and he describes the work as “a record that is truly representative of my musical life right now, one of collaboration, improvisation and pure music-making.”
J'Nai Bridges
Credit: Photo provided by artist
Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), and “calmly commanding stage presence” (The New Yorker) has performed the world’s top opera and concert stages. Career highlights include: her role as Nefertiti in the 2022 GRAMMY Award-winning Metropolitan Opera production of Akhnaten. She received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award and she sold-out her Carnegie Hall Recital debut.
Seth Parker-Woods
Credit: Photo by James Napoli
GRAMMY Award-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods has a reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. The New York Times writes, “Woods is an artist rooted in classical music, but whose cello is a vehicle that takes him, and his concertgoers, on wide-ranging journeys.” He is a recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award.