Upcoming Events
The Future of Jazz - The Future is Female: A Night of Live Music with WIJO
Women in Jazz Organization Presents: A Concert and Conversation on the politics of gender in America's original art form
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 7-9pm
Russell House, 300 High Street
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Live Performance By:
Tahira Clayton - Voice, Roxy Coss - Saxophone, Caili O'Doherty - Piano, Adi Meyerson - Bass, Cory Cox - Drums
Grammy Award-winning Saxophonist, Composer, Activist and Educator Roxy Coss is this year’s Bailey College of the Environment Distinguished Scholar, serving as the Visiting Fellow for the COE’s Think Tank on the topic of “Agency”. Through her work here at Wesleyan, Coss created and taught a course on “Women in Jazz”. Coss is the Founder and President of Women in Jazz Organization (WIJO), and comes from a jazz faculty position at the Juilliard School. She is starting a new role in Fall 2025 as Director of Jazz Studies at Stony Brook University, and serves as the Co-Artistic Director of the Brubeck Jazz Summit. She has released six solo albums including her latest, Disparate Parts (Outside in Music), and performed internationally with jazz artists like Clark Terry, Rufus Reid, Louis Hayes, and Maurice Hines.
Join Roxy Coss on April 30 at the Russell House from 7-9pm, where she will lead an All-Star lineup of New York City-based jazz musicians, featuring the works of historical women in Jazz like Lil Hardin Armstrong and Mary Lou Williams, plus original compositions from the four female members of the band. The group has toured internationally, performing and speaking on the intersection of Jazz, American history, equity, and expression. Coss and WIJO Vice-President, award-winning Vocalist/Composer Tahira Clayton will lead the band and audience in a post-performance discussion immediately following the show.
Women in Jazz Organization is an arts non-profit 501(c)-3 organization serving the community of Jazz Musicians and Composers who identify as Women and Gender Non-Binary. WIJO is based in New York City, with connections to individuals and groups nationally and internationally. WIJO intends to help level the playing field in Jazz, so that women and non-binary people have equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to Jazz, leading to an improved and more rich, diverse, and successful art form. WIJO is committed to honoring Black Americans as the creators of Jazz.
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