Vocalist

It’s a night of brilliantly crafted songs delivered by two artists who know how to inhabit a story. Silvana Estrada sings from down deep, telling her soulful coming-of-age stories in a voice that embraces the legacy of Latin American song and carries into the 21st century. Playing the Venezuelan cuatro guitar, she sings iconoclastic tales that cut straight to the heart. She’s performed and recorded with artists including Natalia Lafourcade (who, like Silvana, grew up outside Veracruz) as well as Andrew Bird, Devendra Banhart, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Following the release of her 2022 debut Marchita, which Rolling Stone called “gorgeously understated, guided by her gauzy voice and rich, acoustic arrangements,” she was awarded the 2022 Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. 

Cécile McLorin Salvant applies her passion for storytelling to find the connections between vaudeville, blues, folk traditions from around the world, theater, jazz, and baroque music. She’s an eclectic curator with an adventurous spirit, unearthing rarely recorded songs from the past: forgotten tales with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. Her albums The Window, Dreams and Daggers, and For One to Love won consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammys, and in 2020, she was awarded a MacArthur fellowship. Her 2022 album Ghost Song was hailed by Downbeat, who wrote in a 4.5-star review, “Her wordplay teases, taunts, and tests in a way that forces her to not just sing a lyric, but dive into roles with the zeal of a method actor. 

EPSG:4326

Silvana Estrada Cécile McLorin Salvant

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Brilliant jazz vocalist, composer, and lyricist Cécile McLorin Salvant weaves a tale of women’s secrecy under the male gaze in her latest project, Mélusine. Salvant takes as her inspiration the European folk legend of Mélusine, the woman cursed to spend one day each week as a half-snake. 

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Harvard University

Acclaimed jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant is a composer, singer, and visual artist. Three-time GRAMMY® winner for “Best Jazz Vocal Album,” Salvant has a deep passion for storytelling and finding the connections between music spanning genres and decades. An eclectic curator, Salvant unearths rarely recorded songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. 

Marcus Performing Arts Center

Over the past decade, vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant has evolved from a youthful talent making waves in the jazz world into a mature artist with a distinctive creative voice. A MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy winner, Salvant has a gift for storytelling and for curating layered, evocative programs that draw connections between vaudeville, blues, international folk traditions, theater, jazz, and classical music, delivering it all with her powerfully swinging voice. Salvant sings selections from her latest release, Mélusine, featuring a mix of original songs and interpretations of French-language repertoire that dates as far back as the 12th century, inspired by the story of a dragon woman from European folk legend. “Salvant, regularly and rightly, is considered one of the greatest jazz singers of her generation” (Rolling Stone).

University of California, Berkeley

Cécile McLorin Salvant, is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late opera singer Jessye Norman described Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings.”  

Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts

A fearless and electrifying jazz vocalist of astonishing power and originality, Cécile McLorin Salvant has vaulted into the very top of the jazz singing pantheon since her 2010 win of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition. The Grammy-winning artist and songwriter has a voice that knows no bounds, deftly incorporating jazz, blues, folk and classical into her intoxicating sound.

Shalin Liu Performance Center

Looking for that too-hot-to-Handel concert date? Meet other music-loving LGBTQ+ singles as you enjoy refreshments and ice-breaker activities before sitting together in Richardson Auditorium to experience the legendary jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant live in an hour-long concert.

Do-Re-Meet: LGBTQ Single Mingle & Concert

Princeton University

30 years ago, the late author and Princeton University Professor Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature—the first native-born American to receive that honor since John Steinbeck. Princeton University Concerts joins the Princeton University Library and the McCarter Theatre Center in a campus-wide celebration of this anniversary by commissioning MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist and composer Cecile McLorin Salvant to create a brand-new work inspired by Morrison’s archives, which are housed at the university and will be on display at Firestone Library in a much-anticipated exhibition in the spring. This tribute to the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the author’s legacy will be a rare glimpse into previously unknown aspects of her creative life and practice, as expressed through an equally rare, genre-defying artist— “one of the greatest jazz singers of her generation, although that label sells her short.” (Rolling Stone)

Cécile McLorin Salvant, Vocals & Sullivan Fortner, Piano

Richardson Auditorium

30 years ago, the late author and Princeton University Professor Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature—the first native-born American to receive that honor since John Steinbeck. Princeton University Concerts joins the Princeton University Library and the McCarter Theatre Center in a campus-wide celebration of this anniversary by commissioning MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist and composer Cecile McLorin Salvant to create a brand-new work inspired by Morrison’s archives, which are housed at the university and will be on display at Firestone Library in a much-anticipated exhibition in the spring. This tribute to the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the author’s legacy will be a rare glimpse into previously unknown aspects of her creative life and practice, as expressed through an equally rare, genre-defying artist— “one of the greatest jazz singers of her generation, although that label sells her short.”

Cécile McLorin Salvant, Vocalist & Sullivan Fortner, Piano

Three-time Grammy winner, MacArthur Fellow, and beloved jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant makes her return to Bing Concert Hall withher latest album Ghost Song, a rich exploration of the myriad ways people find themselves haunted. This emotionally captivating manifestation of absence and grief is powered by Salvant’s vocal gifts, concise yet prismatic writing, and genre-obliterating inclinations.

Stanford University

Last we saw Cécile McLorin Salvant, one of the great jazz singers, she held a Jackson Hall audience captive with her majestic song cycle Ogresse. It would be the last performance before the Mondavi Center shut down for a 19-month, pandemic-related pause. Now the singer returns with Ghost Song, a remarkable album born during the pandemic, on which Salvant interprets songs from Kate Bush, Gregory Porter alongside her stunning original compositions. It’s another reminder that Salvant is an artist whose voice and artistry continue to grow with every new step she takes. “People think that I sing love songs, but more and more I’m realizing that I sing about yearning and the imagination that comes from wanting something and not having it,” says Salvant.  “That’s really when we’re at our most creative.”

Cécile McLorin Salvant Quintet

Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

This special event transforms The Conrad for the spellbinding, once-in-a-generation vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, a multi-GRAMMY-winner and MacArthur Fellow. Salvant has a captivating passion for storytelling and weaves together jazz, blues, Baroque, and folk traditions from the world over. This evening’s concert will feature works from her new album, Ghost Song, her “most revealing and rewarding album yet” (The New York Times). You’ll leave the concert entranced, but don’t float away too soon. Stick around after the show for the best of San Diego’s culinary scene, craft cocktails, and more live music.

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Vocalist

Events

Past events

May 31, 2024

Silvana Estrada Cécile McLorin Salvant · Los Angeles Philharmonic

Feb 2, 2024

Cécile McLorin Salvant · Celebrity Series of Boston

About

Cécile McLorin Salvant hasn't added a bio