Saturday, March 14,  6:00 p.m. + 8:30 p.m.

Kenny Werner is a world-class pianist and composer known for his prolific output of compositions, recordings, and publications that impact audiences around the world.

Werner was awarded the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship Award for his seminal work “No Beginning No End,” a musical journey exploring tragedy and loss, death and transition, and the path from one lifetime to the next. Utilizing over 70 musicians, Werner’s third album for Half Note Records is an expansive composition featuring Joe Lovano, Judy Silvano, wind ensemble, choir, and string quartet.

Born in Brooklyn in 1951 and grew up in Long Island, Werner began playing and performing at a young age—first recording on television at the age of 11. Although he studied classical piano as a child, he enjoyed playing anything he heard on the radio.

His natural instinct for improvisation led Werner to the Berklee School of Music in 1970. From Boston, Werner traveled to Brazil with saxophonist Victor Assis Brasil and studied with his brother, pianist Joao Assis Brasil. This lead to “Effortless Mastery,” his landmark opus on how to allow the master musician from within to manifest.

Improvisation is not just a technique for Grammy-nominated artist Cyrille Aimée, it’s a way of life. The acclaimed vocalist ventured from singing on street corners in Europe to dazzling audiences at the world’s most prestigious jazz festivals; from sneaking out to sing in gypsy encampments in her native France to acting on Broadway; from braving the notoriously tough audiences at New York’s Apollo Theatre to being called a “rising star in the galaxy of jazz singers” by The New York Times.

Among countless accolades, Aimée won the Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition and the Sarah Vaughn International Jazz Vocal Competition. As an actress, Aimée co-starred with Bernadette Peters in a Stephen Sondheim tribute at New York’s City Center which inspired her to dig deeper into Sondheim’s repertoire, resulting in her fourth and most recent album, Move On: A Sondheim Adventure. She’s shared her story via masterclasses, a TEDx talk, and a few addresses at the Conference on World Affairs.