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Featuring Sean Jones with special guest René Marie

Celebrate the season with your favorite holiday classics performed by the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra, featuring Sean Jones on trumpet, with special guest vocalist, René Marie in the intimate Greer Cabaret Theater.

René Marie

In a span of two decades, 11 recordings, and countless stage performances, vocalist René Marie has cemented her reputation as not only a singer, but also a composer, arranger, theatrical performer, and teacher. Rooted in the jazz traditions laid down by Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and other leading ladies of past generations, she borrows various elements of folk, R&B, and even classical and country to create a captivating hybrid style. Her body of work is musical, but it’s more than just music “I have never forgotten the early lessons learned about the power of music,” Marie says. “Today, I try to imbue that feeling of emotion into every song I write and every song I sing – every time. I am very happy to be alive today, doing the things I love to do – singing, composing, writing, teaching and arranging.”

Sean Jones

Music and spirituality have always been fully intertwined in the artistic vision of trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, activist, and Pittsburgh favorite, Sean Jones. Jones is a musical chameleon and is comfortable in any musical setting no matter what the role or the genre. His celebrated career has included projects with Illinois Jacquet, Jimmy Heath, Frank Foster, Nancy Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Gerald Wilson, Marcus Miller, and Wayne Shorter, as well as stints with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and SFJAZZ Collective. Heavily involved in education, Jones taught at the Berklee College of Music as the chair of the Brass Department before joining the Peabody Conservatory as the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair in Jazz Studies in 2018. He also serves as a member of the Jazz Education Network’s Board of Directors and was recently appointed as artistic director of Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz.

Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra

Founded more than 40 years ago by the late educator and saxophonist Nathan Davis, the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra is an interracial, inter-generational group representing Pittsburgh’s finest jazz musicians.

Eric DeFade - tenor saxophone
Jason Kush - tenor saxophone
Mike Tomaro - alto saxophone
Curtis Johnson - alto saxophone
Rick Matt - baritone saxophone
Jeff Bush - trombone
Emmett Goods - trombone
Reggie Watkins - trombone
Glenn Wayland - trombone
JD Chaisson - trumpet
James Moore - trumpet
Joe Badaszewski - trumpet
Adam Bleil - trumpet
Alton Merrell - piano
Marty Ashby - guitar
Paul Thompson - bass
Thomas Wendt - drums

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