Creative Arranging

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Join one of today's most creative and inventive vocalists to discuss her process for selecting material and then making it your own using simple but effective arranging tools. "What she's doing is something completely new.” - NPR, "All Things Considered" Kavita Shah is an award-winning vocalist, improviser, composer, ethnomusicology researcher, and educator who makes work in deep engagement with the jazz tradition while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. A lifelong New Yorker hailed by NPR for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages,” her original projects blending modern jazz, new music, and world traditions include Visions (2014), Folk Songs of Naboréa (2017), Interplay (2018, nominated for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year), and Cape Verdean Blues (forthcoming, 2023). Kavita performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents, and her work has been supported by New Music America, Chamber Music America, Jerome Foundation, Camargo Foundation, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and Park Avenue Armory. Her collaborators include NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan, Martial Solal, MacArthur Genius Miguel Zenón, Lionel Loueke, François Moutin, and Miho Hazama. She has taught at The New School and Carnegie Hall and regularly offers masterclasses around the world. A fierce advocate for gender and racial equity in the arts, she was also a founding member of the We Have Voice Collective and the Ori-Gen Collective. Currently a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Shah is working on a new album of original music for her jazz quintet.