This year’s Summit theme, Awakening, was tailor-made for the moment
Don’t miss out on the fantastic advice and beautiful reflections of your community
Norman Connors
Today, the 70-something-year-old marvels at the path his life took from living in tenement housing doors away from famed comic Bill Cosby to headlining across the globe alongside jazz, R&B, and soul music legends.
Tony Miceli
Tony Miceli is one of those characters who, if they didn’t exist, he would have had to create: a musician as deeply into big rock as he is intimate jazz, a man who built a funky foundation upon the least likely of soulful instruments—vibraphone and marimba, and a serious leader and sideman with a rich sense of humor whose finicky focus has jumped from Monk and Mingus to Mozart and Bach in the past, leaving room for so much more in the future.
Suzanne Cloud
Yesseh Furaha-Ali
Uri Caine
Ernest Stuart
Monnette Sudler
In 1992, Jack Lloyd, entertainment writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote, “A funny thing happened to Monnette Sudler on her way to becoming a folk singer.” That “funny thing” was her immediate induction in the early 1970s into the cutting-edge, free-jazz funky group “Sounds of Liberation” with fellow Germantownians vibist Khan Jamal and saxophonist Byard Lancaster...
Alonzo Demetrius
Kendrah Butler-Waters
Kendrah Butler-Waters' affinity for Philadelphia's historic musical roots has served as the muse for her creative output as a skilled and imaginative pianist, composer, violinist, and vocalist.
Nick Lombardelli
Jimmy Bruno
Diane Monroe
Diane Monroe is a rare gem of a musician whose original compositions and arrangements have garnered accolades from both the classical and jazz worlds, and she continues to bridge the divide.
Justin Faulkner
Sumi Tonooka
Awarded a New Jazz Works grant from Chamber Music America in 2019, pianist/composer Sumi Tonooka found herself inspired by the root systems of trees.