Executive & Artistic Director
Thor Steingraber
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Cécile McLorin Salvant
Fri Feb 6 | 8PM
Sat Feb 7 | 8PM
Run time: approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes with no intermission ________ Program | Program Note
Sullivan Fortner | Yasushi Nakamura | Kyle Poole
Jazz Club Concessions & Bar Menu
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Program
Songs will be announced from the stage. All ticket purchasers will receive an email Sunday morning with a link to watch back this concert for an additional 48 hours so you can enjoy the performance, and backstage artist interviews, with friends and family in the comfort of your home. Enjoy!
Musicians
Cécile McLorin Salvant | Vocals Sullivan Fortner | Piano Yasushi Nakamura | Bass Kyle Poole | Drums
Securing The Soraya’s Future
Support the Thor Steingraber Fund for Artistic Innovation to help us continue to bring new works, world premieres, and bold collaborations to life
In the fall of 2015, my family and I attended a performance at the Valley Performing Arts Center at CSUN. My son, David, had received his undergraduate degree from CSUN many years prior, and we were pleased to see how the campus had grown. The recollections that stand out most in my memory from that evening were the extraordinary venue, its artistic excellence, and my first time meeting Thor Steingraber. For those reasons, my family decided in 2017 to invest in The Soraya’s future and long-term sustainability. In the 10 years since, we have come to know Thor and his vision. Through his leadership, we have witnessed values we so admire come to life on this stage — in the artists, their work, and the experiences they create for Los Angeles’ many communities and for CSUN students. Thor’s dedication and imagination serve so many, and it is my wish that his legacy be preserved. In honor and recognition of Thor’s accomplishments, I am pleased to announce a new fund supporting the art and artists who will continue this work: the Thor Steingraber Fund for Artistic Innovation. From the performance that first introduced my family to this majestic venue a decade ago, to the many moments of beauty and inspiration that have graced its stage since, we have Thor to thank. I hope you will join me and my family in supporting this effort — to ensure that these performances, and the spirit they embody, thrive long into the future.
— Soraya Sarah Nazarian
Program Note
The Soraya’s Jazz Club has grown to be a fan favorite. More than just dinner, drinks, and an immersive experience, it has allowed us to expand the roster of artists we bring to The Soraya, featuring smaller ensembles and intimate works that are more effective in this environment. The small space has been filled with some artistic giants, such as Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Vijay Iyer, Antonio Sanchez, Matthew Whitaker, Lisa Fischer, and Booker T. Jones, among others. Jazz artists are accustomed to performing in venues that are widely varied, from outdoor festivals to large concert halls to basements where some of New York’s long-standing clubs reside. Building this type of space at the Soraya each year is costly, but well worth the effort as we increase the number of performances and sell out many of them.
Gratefully,
Thor Steingraber
Executive and Artistic Director,
Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts
Cécile McLorin Salvant
“With three GRAMMYs® and a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award to her name, Salvant has already far transcended her early status as her generation’s most imaginative and thrilling jazz interpreter.” — Spin
The late Jessye Norman described composer, singer, and visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings.” Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, theater, jazz, baroque, and folkloric music. She is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. Salvant won the 2010 Thelonious Monk competition. She has received three consecutive GRAMMY Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for The Window, Dreams and Daggers, and For One to Love, and she was nominated for the award in 2014 for her album WomanChild. In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. Nonesuch Records released two-time GRAMMY-nominated Ghost Song in 2022, and in 2023 the highly anticipated, two-time GRAMMY-nominated follow-up, Mélusine, an album mostly sung in French, along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Creole. In September, Nonesuch released Oh Snap, an album of 12 very personal songs composed and produced by Salvant. The album features longtime collaborators Sullivan Fortner, Yasushi Nakamura, and Kyle Poole, as well as cameos by singers June McDoom and Kate Davis. Salvant wrote these short, intimate songs as part of a creative quest to place spontaneity and joy at the center of her writing process. She originally recorded them alone, at home, never intending for them to be released, using digital tools and effects that she had never played with before, such as GarageBand, Logic, Autotune, Midi plugins, drum loops, vocal effects, reverb, and filters. The songs reflect Salvant’s wide-ranging musical influences from her 1990s childhood in Miami — from boy bands to grunge to classical to folk — and include party tracks with beats, samba grooves, and quiet folk songs. Born and raised in Miami, to a French mother and Haitian father, Salvant started classical piano studies at 5, sang in a children’s choir at 8, and started classical voice lessons as a teenager. She received a bachelor’s in French law from the Université Pierre-Mendès France in Grenoble while also studying baroque music and jazz at the Darius Milhaud Music Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France. Salvant’s latest work, Ogresse, is a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends genres (folk, baroque, jazz, country). She wrote the story, lyrics, and music. It is arranged by Darcy James Argue for a 13-piece orchestra of multi-instrumentalists. Ogresse, both a biomythography and an homage to the Erzulie Dantor (as painted by Gerard Fortune) and Sarah Baartman, explores fetishism, hunger, diaspora, cycles of appropriation, lies, othering, and ecology. It is in development to become an animated feature-length film, which Salvant will direct. Salvant also makes large-scale textile drawings. Her visual art can be found at Picture Room in Brooklyn, New York.
Sullivan Fortner
GRAMMY Award-winning pianist Sullivan Fortner issued Aria (2015), Moments Preserved (2018), and Solo Game (2023) to critical acclaim, the latter receiving 4-star reviews in DownBeat and Telerama magazines. His 2025 release, Southern Nights, features Peter Washington and Marcus Gilmore. Winner of the 2024 DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Group of the Year, Sullivan Fortner Trio, the New Orleans native has worked with Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Paul Simon, Dianne Reeves, Etienne Charles and John Scofield, Ambrose Akinmusire, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Kassa Overall, Tivon Pennicott, Peter Bernstein, Nicholas Payton, Billy Hart, Gary Bartz, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, and Roy Hargrove.
Fortner’s works and insights have been featured in culture drivers from The New York Times to The Root. Further accolades include the American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship, Leonore Annenberg Fellowship, the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, the Shifting Foundation Grant, and the Western Jazz Presenters Grant.
Yasushi Nakamura
Bassist Yasushi Nakamura is praised for imaginative, quicksilver bass lines that deepen the groove. His blend of guitar-like precision and gut-level blues has sparked collaborations with artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hank Jones, Dave Douglas, and Steve Miller. With his charismatic stage presence and artful, hard-swinging melodic touch, Nakamura is a first-call performer capturing new audiences and fans around the world. Born in Tokyo, Nakamura moved to the United States at age 9 and considers both places home. He began with clarinet and tenor saxophone, but his older brother’s study of guitar and drums drove him to pick up the bass. Nakamura’s love of rock and funk aside, the music of Charlie Parker, Ray Brown, and Miles Davis were a potent influence on him. He received a bachelor’s in jazz performance from Berklee School of Music in 2000 and was awarded a full scholarship to The Juilliard School for his Artist Diploma in 2006. He credits Myron Walden as an early champion, and keeps close ties to Juilliard mentors Gordon, Victor Goines, Carl Allen, and Ben Wolfe, all of whom maintain him in their bands. Nakamura’s career is flourishing, with consistent engagements at premier jazz festivals including Tokyo, North Sea, Monterey, and Ravinia, and at venues such as Birdland, Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, The Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. In 2014, he was honored to play the NEA Jazz Masters Concert celebrating Jamey Aebersold, Anthony Braxton, Richard Davis, and Keith Jarrett, sharing the stage with Joe Lovano and Dave Liebman. A wide array of projects permits him to explore musical styles and collaborations. In 2016, he recorded with one of his longtime inspirations, Akiyoshi, for her release of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. His performance with Akiyoshi’s Jazz Orchestra was also broadcast as a documentary film. Recent works include For the Love of Duke with New York City Ballet, choreographed by Susan Stroman, and “Ellington at Christmas: Nutcracker Suite,” with Savion Glover, Lizz Wright, the Abyssinian Baptist Choir, and David Berger conducting. In 2010, he toured the Middle East with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Kings of the Crescent City” project, and he toured Asia in 2008 with the Juilliard All-Stars. As an educator, Nakamura has led master classes and summer intensive courses at The Juilliard School, New School, Koyo Conservatory, Osaka Geidai, and Savannah Swing Central. In 2016, Nakamura released his first album, A Lifetime Treasure. In 2017, he released his second album, Hometown, from Atelier Sawano, featuring Lawrence Fields, Bigyuki and Clarence Penn, which received album of the year in JazzLife magazine.
Kyle Poole
Hailed by Jazz Speaks as a “prodigious young drummer,” Los Angeles native Kyle Poole has been residing in New York City since 2011 and continues to impress wherever his drums take him. Along with his band of fellow N.Y. jazz upstarts, aptly named Poole & the Gang, Poole has performed in New York’s most esteemed jazz clubs, notably Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and Smoke Jazz, culminating in a weekly residency at Smalls Jazz Club for nearly three years.
One of his chief missions is to expand jazz’s audience by incorporating various dance styles of music, reaching back to ragtime and bebop, while forging ahead all the way to funk, hip-hop, and beyond. With the constant fluctuation of genre, rhythm and harmony, Poole & the Gang connects these musical dots in a uniquely improvised fashion.
The Soraya
The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya/Producer) is an award-winning, state-of-the-art 1,700-seat theater that opened in 2011 as the Valley Performing Arts Center. Through a transformative gift by Younes and Soraya Nazarian, the venue was renamed The Soraya in 2017. The Soraya is located on the campus of California State University, Northridge, the intellectual and cultural heart of the San Fernando Valley.
Executive and Artistic Director Thor Steingraber, in his 12th year leading the organization, sums up what makes The Soraya a central piece of Los Angeles arts and culture. “At The Soraya, we hold a high standard of excellence for every performance from a vast array of artistic disciplines, and we hold steadfast to our commitment to the value and impact of the performing arts in community-building, for the Valley’s 1.8 million residents and beyond.”
The Soraya’s 2025–26 Season is a journey through the expansive sounds of orchestras, the freestyle vibes of jazz, the innovations of dance luminaries, and a vast array of global voices. The Soraya continues its vigorous commitment to excelling, innovating, and amplifying access for Valley residents, students, and arts lovers across Southern California.