Peggy Stern

Well, things are chugging right along here in DC, my second season in the Capitol.Capital City Voices has expanded to two full jazz choruses, and we will be performing (with Amy Shook, Frank Russo, and co-director Jeff Antoniuk) on December 12th at Blues Alley. The Wall Street Jazz Festival was spectacular this year (Sep 1,2), very inspired and inspiring. Nov. 2-6 doing a mini tour with Bassist Rich Syracuse in IOWA (first time there); we’ll see what we can do about that caucus (!).

Concert at Christ Church

We just held our debut concert at Christ Church on Capitol Hill, DC. What a lovely concert! The singers and audience had such a good time; I am feeling like I’m making a nice contribution to the community, in the only way I know – the music. Anyway, Al Wolcott (from River Jazz, Kingston, NY) came down to join the baritones, and Yeva Avakyan flew in from Bangladesh to make the concert. It’s a very nice beginning for this group.

After the choir sang "Mila"

June 11, 2011

Sue Terry and I played the Kennedy Center (fortress of the Arts!) a couple of days ago, and what fun, and what an honor! Seriously, the venue, and staff were beautiful, gracious, professional, and low-key. No emergencies, pretty mellow. Sue and I were treated like – well, like Artists, imagine that! Musically, it was pretty interesting, because we are a duo, and chose to play acoustically. Everything else in the program had amps and mikes, and I heard the contrast was most interesting! The other thing that stood out, at least on our program, was that we played all original music, with the exception of the combined tune Weaver of Dreams/There Will Never Be Another You,  and our tribute to the late great Billy Taylor – his tune, Picture This… other than those, we did what we do, and played outside the box, with our good chemistry and musicianship, we had a ball, if I do say so myself!

He played at Blues Alley a few weeks ago, and some members of Capital City Voices ( my DC jazz chorus) went with me to hear him. I met him and his lovely wife between sets, and told him we are singing “You Must Believe in Spring”, and his first comment was: Wow! That’s really weird, how do you arrange a tune like that for chorus?! So I promised to send him a copy (hardcopy, he doesn’t do internet online stuff), and then he proceeded to play the tune in the next set, very gracious person, and charming (charmant!)

I’m excited about this new website; very modern and tech-y…I will be posting my music for download, and filling in details of my musical life these days. As always, you can buy my CDs at CDBaby for a very reasonable price, and also download individual songs at itunes. I won’t tweet or blog (ah, the english language…), but I will tell stories here. Stay tuned!

This just in! Sue Terry and I (Sweet Sue) will be playing Kennedy Center May 21st, at 7 PM, as part of the venerable Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. I will post more later.