Name: Festival Big Band, with Maiya Sykes
Start: 2025-07-19T19:30:00
Location: Mendocino Music Festival

Maiya Sykes

Mendocino Music Festival

Zoe Ellis’s dramatic and colorful voice is well known to music fans in the Bay Area and beyond. Described by reviewers as “a resourceful and inventive vocalist,” she sang for many years with the Bay Area funk band, the Mo’Fessionals. A dynamic performer, Ellis’s credits include live performances with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Donald Byrd, Phil Lesh and Friends, ZADELL music co-lead with her big brother Dave Ellis, SoVoSo, Slammin All-Body Band, Darryl Anders AgapeSoul, and as the leader of her own quartet, The Zoe Ellis Group. Currently, she is Director of Music Ministries at Glide Memorial Church.

Zoe Ellis, with Tammy Lynne Hall and Leberta Lorál

Preston Hall

Maiya Sykes is back for her third Big Band concert and she’s ready to pull out all the stops. She’s a former back-up singer whose rendition of “Stay with Me” on The Voice in 2014 catapulted her to lead singer fame. Based in Los Angeles, Sykes is a classically trained musician who graduated from Yale and studied with Betty Carter and Nina Simone. Her recent guest vocal on funk band Scary Pockets’ mash-up of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind” and Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop” has 20.7 million YouTube views. With the Julian “J3PO” Pollack Trio as the band’s rhythm section, the tent is gonna really rock!