Sneed explores the deep and soulful connections between jazz and gospel and draws on the music of giants including Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Wynton Marsalis—whose compositions include gospel music—to demonstrate how the styles have been combined to create important works. “Family Concert: Jazz Meets Gospel” features organist Jammal Graham; soloists Tekesha Russell, Brianna Thomas, and Dr. Iona Locke; saxophonist Kenneth Whalum; and vocalists Chenee Campbell, Matia Washington, Lynette Rhett McNeil, Tiffany Stevenson, and Djore Nance.
Sneed has worked with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis since Sneed’s conducting debut at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2008. “It has been an honor and privilege to work with Wynton Marsalis and the esteemed Jazz at Lincoln Center organization,” says Sneed. “They have assisted in elevating my career to new heights and I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship. The work the organization is producing is historic and significant to the young people of America.”
“Damien is an unbelievable conductor, choirmaster and piano soloist,” said Marsalis, Managing and Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center. “I have never seen anyone like him. He has such a depth of knowledge of music, and he’s innovative in his ways.”
A mainstay of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s programming since 1992, the perennially popular Jazz for Young People series teaches key musical concepts and other fundamentals via hour-long, interactive, family-friendly concerts that illuminate the subject at hand with a light, amusing touch, while delving into a theme from another major performance of the season—in this case, Wynton Marsalis’ Abyssinian Mass. The Jazz for Young People Family Concert is funded through the generosity of Mica and Ahmet Ertegun.
In celebration of Sneed’s new album project, Broken to Minister, featuring The Levites, in stores November 12, Jazz at Lincoln Center will also host an invitation-only album listening party on Friday, November 8 at the organization’s Irene Diamond Education Center.
Sneed returns to New York City after the highly successful and critically acclaimed 16-city Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration Tour. Sneed conducted Wynton Marsalis’ historic Abyssinian Mass with the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and Sneed’s 70-piece Chorale LeChateau. The tour kicked off at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC); and continued onto the Chrysler Hall (Norfolk, VA); the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC); the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church (Charlotte, NC); the University of Georgia (Athens, GA); the Good Shepherd Baptist Church (Augusta, GA); the Saenger Theatre (New Orleans, LA); the Fountain of Praise Church (Houston, TX); the Long Center (Austin, TX); the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (Dallas, TX); the Touhill Performing Arts Center (St. Louis, MO); the Kaufmann Center for the Performing Arts, Helzberg Hall (Kansas City, MO); Messiah College (Mechanicsburg, PA); Yale University, Woosley Hall (New Haven, CT); Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall (New York, NY) and concluded on Sunday, October 27 at Symphony Hall (Boston, MA).