Valerie Troutt

San Francisco Jazz

A rising vocal star and two-time JUNO Award winner, Montreal-based singer and songwriter Dominique Fils-Aimé performs two nights in the Joe Henderson Lab with music from her latest album, Our Roots Run Deep, which took the 2024 JUNO for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. “What she does with her voice is absolutely incredible” (NPR).

Dominique Fils-Aimé

SFJAZZ Center

With wide-ranging influences such as Bjork, Dianne Reeves, Carmen McRae, Joni Mitchell, and Cassandra Wilson, jazz and gospel vocalist Valerie Troutt is a tremendously creative artist for whom art and activism are intertwined. She returns to SFJAZZ to honor the legacy of Oakland-born gospel legend Walter Hawkins and the Hawkins Family.

Bay Area born and bred, her spiritual and social justice driven performances mirror her lifelong hunger for social connection and cultural narratives. Since returning to the Bay Area after her studies at New York’s New School and subsequent touring, Troutt has partnered with East Bay Performance Art Center, the Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco Queer Cultural Center, the Embodiment Project, Zoolabs, Yerba Buena SF, and Oakland School for the Arts, where Troutt is currently a teaching artist in residence.