Subscriptions starting at $102 on sale now at dso.org/jazz
Terence Blanchard extended as Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair through the 2025–2026 season; will perform with the E-Collective and Turtle Island Quartet on January 31, 2025
Guest artists include Chucho Valdés Royal Quartet, Cyrus Chestnut and friends, the SFJAZZ Collective, Ron Carter Quartet, and Cécile McLorin Salvant
Detroit, (June 24, 2024) – The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) today announced the 2024–2025 Paradise Jazz Series featuring six concerts on the Orchestra Hall stage, with ticket packages now available for purchase. The new season’s artists include Terence Blanchard (Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair at the DSO), Chucho Valdés Royal Quartet, Cyrus Chestnut and friends, musicians from the SFJAZZ Collective, Ron Carter Quartet, and Cécile McLorin Salvant.
“We are thrilled to share the 2024–2025 season of the Paradise Jazz Series, which honors Orchestra Hall’s history as the Paradise Theatre,” said Blanchard. “Detroit is one of the great jazz cities, and our audiences always know good music. We have an amazing lineup this season that preserves jazz’s rich legacy while celebrating its future with some of today’s best artists—don’t miss it!”
The DSO is also pleased to extend the appointment of Terence Blanchard as the Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair through the 2025–2026 season. "Celebrating the artistry and leadership of Terence is a true honor for the DSO,” said DSO President and CEO Erik Rönmark. “His passion and commitment continue to inspire us all, and we are immensely grateful for his vision in shaping the vibrant spirit of our Paradise Jazz Series.”
The series kicks off on October 18 as Grammy Award winning pianist and composer Chucho Valdés brings his Royal Quartet for an evening of Afro-Cuban Jazz. In a career spanning more than 60 years, both as a solo artist and bandleader, Valdés has distilled elements of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, jazz, classical music, rock, and more, into a deeply personal style.
On December 6, a holiday favorite returns as virtuosic and playful pianist Cyrus Chestnut performs Vince Guaraldi's classic score from A Charlie Brown Christmas. A masterful jazz pianist, Cyrus Chestnut balances his dexterous technical skill with a robust, soulful style that speaks to his deep gospel roots and love of swinging hard bop. Raised in the church, he learned how to infuse his swinging, classically trained style with a warm gospel sound.
On January 31, 2025, Terence Blanchard will present his evening length, Grammy Award winning work A Tale of God’s Will: Requiem for Katrina, commemorating 20 years since the devastation of the hurricane. For this updated version of the song cycle, Blanchard has added new arrangements with his band the E-Collective and double Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet to create a tapestry that captures the destruction of the hurricane and redemption of the great city of New Orleans following the disaster. “After being paired back for Turtle Island Quartet, Blanchard’s writing hits more starkly,” writes The New York Times.
On February 22, 2025, the SFJAZZ Collective celebrates 20 years with a retrospective featuring works from icons such as Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, and more as well as selections from the 20th Anniversary Suite, which was collectively composed by the current band, inspired by the history of the ensemble. Under the direction of Chris Potter, the ensemble includes dynamic artists David Sánchez, Mike Rodriguez, Warren Wolf, Edward Simon, Matt Brewer, and Kendrick Scott.
On April 4, 2025, three-time Grammy Award winner and Detroit native Ron Carter brings his acclaimed quartet to the Paradise Jazz Series. This special performance will include drummer Payton Crossley, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Green, and star pianist Renee Rosnes, and will take listeners on a journey through music across various albums, from standards on Dear Miles, to well-known originals documented throughout Carter’s long and illustrious career.
The series concludes on June 6, 2025, as Grammy Award winning singer, composer, and visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant makes her Paradise Jazz Series debut. Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, global folk traditions, theater, jazz, and baroque music. She is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded and forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor.
Subscriptions are on sale now for the 2024–2025 Paradise Jazz Series, beginning at $102 for the entire season. Subscribe by visiting dso.org/jazz, calling 313.576.5111, or visiting the DSO Box Office (3711 Woodward Avenue, Detroit; open Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Summer hours beginning July 1: 11 a.m.–5 p.m.). Single tickets for Paradise Jazz Series concerts will go on sale in August.
Currently in its 25th season, the Paradise Jazz Series is named for and honors the legacy of the Paradise Theatre, the historic Detroit jazz venue that was on the site of Orchestra Hall from 1941–1951. The DSO is one of few major American orchestras to present regular jazz programming on its main stage. Learn more about the series at dso.org/jazz.
The Paradise Jazz Series is supported by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, MGM Grand Detroit, and DownBeat magazine.
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2024-2025 PARADISE JAZZ SERIES
All concerts at Orchestra Hall within the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center (3711 Woodward Avenue, Detroit).
Please note: programs and artists subject to change; the DSO does not appear on these performances; program duration and the inclusion of an intermission are subject to change depending on the program.
CHUCHO VALDÉS ROYAL QUARTET
Friday, October 18, 2024
Cuban pianist, composer, and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. In a career spanning more than 60 years, both as a solo artist and bandleader, Valdés has distilled elements of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, jazz, classical music, rock, and more, into a deeply personal style.
Winner of seven Grammy and six Latin Grammy Awards, Valdés received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Science. He was also inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame.
A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS - CYRUS CHESTNUT & FRIENDS
Friday, December 6, 2024
Begin your holiday season with Vince Guaraldi's classic score from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Virtuosic and playful pianist Cyrus Chestnut infuses these classic charts with his soulful sound. Hear all your favorites: "Linus and Lucy," "Christmas Time is Here," "O Tannenbaum," and more!
A masterful jazz pianist, Cyrus Chestnut balances his dexterous technical skill with a robust, soulful style that speaks to his deep gospel roots and love of swinging hard bop. Raised in the church, he learned how to infuse his swinging, classically trained style with a warm gospel sound.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: A TALE OF GOD’S WILL
Friday, January 31, 2025
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans native son Terence Blanchard created an impassioned, Grammy-award winning work— A Tale of God's Will: A Requiem for Katrina. This updated work is an evening-length emotional tour-de-force of anger, rage, compassion, melancholy, and beauty.
20 years later, Blanchard is touring this work to commemorate all the events surrounding Katrina and how the great crescent city overcame this adversity. For this updated version of the song cycle, Blanchard has added new arrangements with his band the E-collective and double Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet to create a tapestry that captures the destruction of the hurricane and redemption of the great city of New Orleans following the disaster.
SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE: 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Chris Potter
David Sánchez
Mike Rodriguez
Warren Wolf
Edward Simon
Matt Brewer
Kendrick Scott
In celebration of its 20th anniversary, the SFJAZZ Collective presents a retrospective featuring works from icons such as Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, and more as well as selections from the 20th Anniversary Suite, which was collectively composed by the current band, inspired by the history of the ensemble. Under the direction of Chris Potter, this lineup of the Collective including David Sánchez, Mike Rodriguez, Warren Wolf, Edward Simon, and Kendrick Scott is among the most dynamic ever, ensuring each performance is fresh, fun, and full of surprises.
An all-star ensemble comprising the finest performer/composers at work in jazz today, the SFJAZZ Collective was conceived to create fresh arrangements of works by modern masters and newly commissioned pieces by each member of the band. Through this pioneering approach, simultaneously honoring music’s greatest figures while championing jazz’s up-to-the-minute directions, the Collective has embodied SFJAZZ’s commitment to jazz as a dynamic, ever-evolving art form.
RON CARTER QUARTET
Friday, April 4, 2025
Ron Carter, bass
Renee Rosnes, piano
Jimmy Greene, tenor saxophone
Payton Crossley, drums
Among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz, three-time Grammy Award winner Ron Carter brings his acclaimed quartet to the Paradise Jazz Series. Over his 60-year career, he has recorded with so many of the jazz greats: Miles Davis, Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Eric Dolphy, and Cannonball Adderley, to name a few. This special performance includes drummer Payton Crossley, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Green, and star pianist Renee Rosnes, and will take you on a journey with music recorded on various albums, from standards that you can find on Dear Miles, to well-known originals documented throughout Carter’s long and illustrious career.
CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT
Friday, June 6, 2025
Singer, composer, and visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant is “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings”—Jessye Norman. Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, global folk traditions, theater, jazz, and baroque music. She is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded and forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. Salvant won the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Vocals Competition in 2010. She has won three Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album and has been nominated for an additional five Grammy Awards, including three for Best Jazz Vocal Album and two for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals. In 2020, Salvant received a MacArthur Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award. This performance marks her debut on the Paradise Jazz Series.
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About Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard has been a consistent artistic force for making powerful musical statements concerning painful American tragedies—past and present. A true Renaissance man, Blanchard stands tall as one of jazz’s most esteemed trumpeters and defies expectations by creating a spectrum of artistic pursuits. Boundary-breaking and genre-defying, Blanchard is recognized globally as a dazzling soloist and a prolific composer for film, television, opera, Broadway, orchestras, and his own ensembles. Leading theater magazine TheaterMania recently cited Blanchard as, “the most exciting American composer working in opera today.”
An eight-time Grammy Award winner and two-time Oscar-nominated film composer, Blanchard became only the second African American composer to be nominated twice in the original score category at the 2022 Academy Awards, duplicating Quincy Jones’s feat from 1967’s In Cold Blood and 1985’s The Color Purple. Blanchard’s work has placed him at the forefront of giving voice to human rights, civil rights, and racial injustice, including the 2015 album Breathless, an elegy for Eric Garner, who was killed by police and whose words, “I can’t breathe,” became a civil rights rallying cry.
Blanchard has composed two operas, including Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which is based on the memoir of celebrated writer and The New York Times columnist Charles Blow. The Metropolitan Opera premiered Fire Shut Up in My Bones on September 27, 2021, to open their 2021–22 season in New York, making it the first opera composer by an African American composer to premiere at the Met in its 138-year history. The recording of those performances received a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, and The New York Times heralded “Fire” as “inspiring,” “subtly powerful,” and “a bold affecting adaptation of Charles Blow’s work.” Of the historical moment, Blanchard said, “I don’t want to be a token, but a turnkey.” “Fire” has been widely recognized as one of our nation’s most important cultural milestones and returned to the Met for a highly anticipated second run in April 2024.
Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, about the troubled life of boxer Emile Griffith, premiered in 2013 and starred Denyce Graves with a libretto from Pulitzer Prize winner, Michael Cristofer. Champion premiered at the Met in April 2023 to widespread critical acclaim. It too received a 2024 Grammy for Best Opera Recording.
But there is a center of gravity. It’s Blanchard’s beautiful, provocative, inspiring jazz recordings that undergird all these projects. The same holds as true now as it did early in his career in 1994, when he told DownBeat magazine: “Writing for film is fun, but nothing can beat being a jazz musician, playing a club, playing a concert.”
Blanchard has composed the scores for more than 20 Spike Lee projects over three decades, ranging from the documentary When the Levees Broke to the recent Lee films BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods (both of which garnered Blanchard Oscar nominations). Across his expansive body of work, Blanchard has interwoven beautiful melodies that create strong backdrops to human stories, including Regina King’s One Night in Miami; Kasi Lemmons’s Eve’s Bayou; George Lucas’s Red Tails; the HBO drama series Perry Mason (now in its second season); Apple TV’s docuseries They Call Me Magic (for which Blanchard received an Emmy nomination) and The Woman King, the critically acclaimed film by Gina Prince Bythewood and Viola Davis.
In his expansive career as a recording leader, Blanchard delivered Absence, a collaboration with his longtime E-Collective band and the acclaimed Turtle Island Quartet, which received Grammy nominations in November 2021 for Best Instrumental Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo (for Blanchard). Recorded in February 2020 just before the Covid-19 lockdowns, Absence started out as a project to show gratitude to Wayne Shorter. “I knew that Wayne wasn’t feeling well at the time, so I wanted to honor him to let him know how much he has meant to me,” said Blanchard, who today lives in Los Angeles as well as in his native New Orleans. “When you look at my own writing, you can see how much I’ve learned from Wayne. He mastered writing compositions starting with a simple melody and then juxtaposing it against the harmonies that come from a different place to make it come alive in a different light."
Born in New Orleans in 1962, Blanchard is a musical polymath who launched his solo career as a bandleader in the 1990s. Since then, he has released 20 solo albums, garnered 15 Grammy nominations, composed for the stage and more than 60 films, and received 10 major commissions. He has been named an official 2024 NEA Jazz Master, as well as a member of the 2024 class of awardees for the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Letters. He currently serves as the Executive Artistic Director for SF Jazz, the largest non-profit jazz presenter in the world.
Regarding his consistent attachment to artistic works of conscience, Blanchard confesses, “You get to a certain age when you ask, ‘Who’s going to stand up and speak out for us?’ Then you look around and realize that the James Baldwins, Muhammad Alis, and Dr. Kings are no longer here...and begin to understand that it falls on you. I’m not trying to say I’m here to try to correct the whole thing, I’m just trying to speak the truth.” In that regard, he cites unimpeachable inspirations. “John Coltrane playing Alabama, even Louis Armstrong talking about what was going on with his people any time he was interviewed. Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter who live by their Buddhist philosophy and try to expand the conscience of their communities. I’m standing on all their shoulders. How dare I come through this life having had the blessing of meeting those men and not take away any of that? Like anybody else, I’d like to play feel good party music, but sometimes my music is about the reality of where we are.”
Learn more at terenceblanchard.com.
About the DSO
The acclaimed Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, collaborations with the world’s foremost musical artists, and a deep connection to its city. Led by Music Director Jader Bignamini since 2020, the DSO makes its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, offering a performance schedule that features the PVS Classical, PNC Pops, Paradise Jazz, and Young People’s Family Concert series. In addition, the DSO presents the William Davidson Neighborhood Concert Series in metro area venues, as well as eclectic multi-genre performances in its mid-size venue The Cube, constructed and curated with support from Peter D. & Julie F. Cummings. A dedication to broadcast innovation began in 1922, when the DSO became the first orchestra in the world to present a live radio broadcast of a concert and continues today with the groundbreaking Live from Orchestra Hall series of free webcasts.
Since its first school concerts a century ago, and particularly since the founding of the Civic Youth Ensembles in 1970, the DSO has been a national leader in bringing the benefits of music education to students, teachers, and families in Detroit and surrounding communities. The DSO remains committed to expanding its participation in the growth and well-being of Detroit through programs like its Detroit Neighborhood Initiative—cultural events co-created with community partners and residents—and Detroit Harmony, a promise to provide an instrument and instruction to any student in the city who wants to learn. With unwavering support from the people of Detroit, the DSO actively pursues a mission to impact lives through the power of unforgettable musical experiences.