Wildflowers: Kurt Elling with Fred Hersch
Saturday, February 6, 2027
$50 Advance | $52 Day of Show
[all-in pricing, no additional fees]
Doors 7pm | Show 8pm
Kurt Elling is a two-time GRAMMY Award–winning vocalist renowned for his signature rich sound and an inventive, deeply individual body of work. With a one-of-a-kind approach to contemporary beat lyricism and vocalese, the Chicago-based artist has expanded the expressive possibilities of vocal jazz. The New York Times has called Elling “the standout male jazz vocalist of our time,” while The Guardian (UK) praised him as “a kind of Sinatra with superpowers.”
$50 Advance | $52 Day of Show
[all-in pricing, no additional fees]
Doors 7pm | Show 8pm
Kurt Elling is a two-time GRAMMY Award–winning vocalist renowned for his signature rich sound and an inventive, deeply individual body of work. With a one-of-a-kind approach to contemporary beat lyricism and vocalese, the Chicago-based artist has expanded the expressive possibilities of vocal jazz. The New York Times has called Elling “the standout male jazz vocalist of our time,” while The Guardian (UK) praised him as “a kind of Sinatra with superpowers.”
Over a career spanning more than twenty-five years of touring and recording, Elling has earned three DownBeat Jazz Vocal (France), two Georgie Echo Awards, two Dutch Edison Awards, and sixteen GRAMMY nominations. He has topped the DownBeat Critics and Readers Polls for Male Vocalist of the Year for more than a decade and is a twelve-time Jazz Journalists Association Award winner. In recent years, his work has continued to garner widespread acclaim for its ambition, range, and cross-genre reach.
In 2024, Elling made his Broadway debut to critical praise, starring as Hermes in the Tony Award–winning musical Hadestown, further underscoring his rare versatility as both a jazz artist and theatrical performer. His performance introduced him to new audiences while reaffirming his stature as one of the most expressive vocalists of his generation.
Elling has collaborated with leading figures across the jazz world, including Branford Marsalis, Danilo Pérez, Fred Hersch, Charlie Hunter, and Stefon Harris, and has appeared as a featured soloist with many of the world’s premier large ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Symphony Orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, the WDR Big Band, the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra, and the Village Vanguard Orchestra.
A prolific lyricist and composer, Elling has also co-created multidisciplinary works for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and the City of Chicago. Jazz at Lincoln Center presented the world premiere of The Big Blind, a new jazz musical he is co-writing with songwriter Phil Galdston. National Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky has written that “In Kurt Elling’s art, the voice of jazz gives new spiritual presence to the ancient, sweet and powerful bond between poetry and music.”
Elling has toured internationally in a wide range of settings, including UNESCO-sponsored International Jazz Day performances around the globe, and has appeared twice at the White House. He has served as Artist-in-Residence at both the Monterey and Singapore Jazz Festivals, and, as an industry leader, spent six years as a Trustee and two years as Vice Chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
About Fred Hersch: A member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch has been an influential creative force over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair and “a living legend” by The New Yorker. A seventeen-time Grammy nominee, Hersch has garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards, including a Doris Duke Artist (2016), Jazz Pianist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association (2011, 2016, 2018), and the Jazz Magazine (France) International Artist of the Year (2021). The Fred Hersch Trio was voted the #1 Jazz Group in the 2019 DownBeat Critics Poll.
An acclaimed and influential solo pianist, he has twelve solo recordings in his catalog including the 2024 release, Silent, Listening which is a collaboration with legendary producer Manfred Eicher for the ECM label. The New York Times calls him “a master who plays it his way”,
Through more than twelve albums, the Fred Hersch Trio has remained at the pinnacle of modern jazz, venerated as the epitome of thrilling interplay and dynamic spontaneity. The Wall Street Journal calls the trio “one of the major ensembles of our time,” while The New Yorker has applauded it for playing with “high lyricism and high danger.” They were named the #1 Jazz Group of the Year by DownBeat magazine. His next trio album The Surrounding Green will be released on ECM Records in June 2025.
Hersch has more than sixty albums to his credit as leader or co-leader. His 2022 Breath By Breath features him playing his own compositions inspired by his insight meditation practice with his trio and with the Crosby Street String Quartet. A 2022 duo project with Italian trumpet maestro Enrico Rava, The Song Is You (ECM), was followed by the 2023 release of Alive at the Village Vanguard, a duo with dazzling jazz vocalist Esperanza Spalding that was nominated for two 2024 Grammy Awards..
An exceptionally responsive and intuitive collaborator, Hersch has engaged in duo partnerships with a number of spirited artists, including clarinetist Anat Cohen; guitarists Bill Frisell, Gilad Hekselman and Julian Lage; saxophonists Chris Potter, Joe Lovano and Miguel Zenon; trumpeters Avishai Cohen and Enrico Rava; and vocalists Kurt Elling, Esperanza Spalding, Kate McGarry, Audra McDonald, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Renée Fleming. His many sideman credits include Joe Henderson, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, Charlie Haden, and other jazz legends.
Hersch’s memoir, Good Things Happen Slowly (Crown Archetype), compellingly reveals the story of his life in music along with a frank recounting of his health struggles and triumphs as the first openly gay, HIV-positive jazz musician. The book was named one of 2017’s Five Best Memoirs by the Washington Post and the New York Times. His story has also been told in a feature documentary by filmmakers Carrie Lozano and Charlotte Lagarde, The Ballad of Fred Hersch, while widely renowned for his playing, Hersch has earned similar distinction with his composing, among other awards. His large-scale setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry for two voices and instrumental octet, Leaves of Grass garnered him a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition. He has received commissions from Roomful of Teeth, Igor Levit, the Lucerne Festival, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Doris Duke Millennium Fund, and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival.
For two decades Hersch has been a passionate spokesman and fundraiser for AIDS services and education agencies. He has produced and performed on four benefit recordings and in numerous concerts for charities; to date, his efforts have raised more than $300,000
A committed educator, Hersch has taught at New England Conservatory, the Juilliard School, the New School, Rutgers University and the Manhattan School of Music and has given master classes around the world. Hersch’s influence has been widely felt on a new generation of jazz pianists, from former students Brad Mehldau, Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Diehl, Dan Tepfer, and Ethan Iverson to his piano colleague Jason Moran, who has said, “Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He’s perfection.”
In 2024, Elling made his Broadway debut to critical praise, starring as Hermes in the Tony Award–winning musical Hadestown, further underscoring his rare versatility as both a jazz artist and theatrical performer. His performance introduced him to new audiences while reaffirming his stature as one of the most expressive vocalists of his generation.
Elling has collaborated with leading figures across the jazz world, including Branford Marsalis, Danilo Pérez, Fred Hersch, Charlie Hunter, and Stefon Harris, and has appeared as a featured soloist with many of the world’s premier large ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Symphony Orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, the WDR Big Band, the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra, and the Village Vanguard Orchestra.
A prolific lyricist and composer, Elling has also co-created multidisciplinary works for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and the City of Chicago. Jazz at Lincoln Center presented the world premiere of The Big Blind, a new jazz musical he is co-writing with songwriter Phil Galdston. National Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky has written that “In Kurt Elling’s art, the voice of jazz gives new spiritual presence to the ancient, sweet and powerful bond between poetry and music.”
Elling has toured internationally in a wide range of settings, including UNESCO-sponsored International Jazz Day performances around the globe, and has appeared twice at the White House. He has served as Artist-in-Residence at both the Monterey and Singapore Jazz Festivals, and, as an industry leader, spent six years as a Trustee and two years as Vice Chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
About Fred Hersch: A member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch has been an influential creative force over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair and “a living legend” by The New Yorker. A seventeen-time Grammy nominee, Hersch has garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards, including a Doris Duke Artist (2016), Jazz Pianist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association (2011, 2016, 2018), and the Jazz Magazine (France) International Artist of the Year (2021). The Fred Hersch Trio was voted the #1 Jazz Group in the 2019 DownBeat Critics Poll.
An acclaimed and influential solo pianist, he has twelve solo recordings in his catalog including the 2024 release, Silent, Listening which is a collaboration with legendary producer Manfred Eicher for the ECM label. The New York Times calls him “a master who plays it his way”,
Through more than twelve albums, the Fred Hersch Trio has remained at the pinnacle of modern jazz, venerated as the epitome of thrilling interplay and dynamic spontaneity. The Wall Street Journal calls the trio “one of the major ensembles of our time,” while The New Yorker has applauded it for playing with “high lyricism and high danger.” They were named the #1 Jazz Group of the Year by DownBeat magazine. His next trio album The Surrounding Green will be released on ECM Records in June 2025.
Hersch has more than sixty albums to his credit as leader or co-leader. His 2022 Breath By Breath features him playing his own compositions inspired by his insight meditation practice with his trio and with the Crosby Street String Quartet. A 2022 duo project with Italian trumpet maestro Enrico Rava, The Song Is You (ECM), was followed by the 2023 release of Alive at the Village Vanguard, a duo with dazzling jazz vocalist Esperanza Spalding that was nominated for two 2024 Grammy Awards..
An exceptionally responsive and intuitive collaborator, Hersch has engaged in duo partnerships with a number of spirited artists, including clarinetist Anat Cohen; guitarists Bill Frisell, Gilad Hekselman and Julian Lage; saxophonists Chris Potter, Joe Lovano and Miguel Zenon; trumpeters Avishai Cohen and Enrico Rava; and vocalists Kurt Elling, Esperanza Spalding, Kate McGarry, Audra McDonald, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Renée Fleming. His many sideman credits include Joe Henderson, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, Charlie Haden, and other jazz legends.
Hersch’s memoir, Good Things Happen Slowly (Crown Archetype), compellingly reveals the story of his life in music along with a frank recounting of his health struggles and triumphs as the first openly gay, HIV-positive jazz musician. The book was named one of 2017’s Five Best Memoirs by the Washington Post and the New York Times. His story has also been told in a feature documentary by filmmakers Carrie Lozano and Charlotte Lagarde, The Ballad of Fred Hersch, while widely renowned for his playing, Hersch has earned similar distinction with his composing, among other awards. His large-scale setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry for two voices and instrumental octet, Leaves of Grass garnered him a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition. He has received commissions from Roomful of Teeth, Igor Levit, the Lucerne Festival, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Doris Duke Millennium Fund, and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival.
For two decades Hersch has been a passionate spokesman and fundraiser for AIDS services and education agencies. He has produced and performed on four benefit recordings and in numerous concerts for charities; to date, his efforts have raised more than $300,000
A committed educator, Hersch has taught at New England Conservatory, the Juilliard School, the New School, Rutgers University and the Manhattan School of Music and has given master classes around the world. Hersch’s influence has been widely felt on a new generation of jazz pianists, from former students Brad Mehldau, Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Diehl, Dan Tepfer, and Ethan Iverson to his piano colleague Jason Moran, who has said, “Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He’s perfection.”