New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), located in downtown Newark, New Jersey, is among the largest performing arts centers in the United States. It is the artistic, cultural, educational and civic center of New Jersey — where great performances and events enhance and transform lives every day. NJPAC has attracted more than 11 million visitors (including more than two million children) since opening its doors in 1997, and nurtures meaningful and lasting relationships with each of its constituents. Visit www.njpac.org for more information.

#1 Jazz Club in NYC - SecretNYC

Located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side at the junction of Broadway and 106th Street (aka Duke Ellington Boulevard), Smoke Jazz Club is one of New York City’s premier live music venues. Renowned for offering top-notch programming of accessible, timeless jazz featuring legendary performers, modern masters and rising stars, Smoke stands apart with its candlelit dining room, stellar acoustics, and classic American cuisine. Founded in 1999, SMOKE also boasts a GRAMMY-nominated label, Smoke Sessions Records, and a celebrated streaming concert series, Smoke Screens. For everything else, visit SMOKEjazz.com.

The Grammy Award-winning Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Each season, Gil Rose brings BMOP’s award-winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory’s historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unrivaled eclecticism. Musical America’s 2016 Ensemble of the Year, BMOP was awarded the 2021 Special Achievement Award from Gramophone Magazine as “an organization that has championed American music of the 20th and 21st century with passion and panache.” BMOP.org

Founded in 2016 by Asian-American Opera Maker Cerise Lim Jacobs, White Snake Projects (WSP) is an activist opera company making mission-driven work that unites artmaking with civic practice. Its inaugural production, on the theme of multiculturalism, was the Ouroborous Trilogy: Naga (composer Scott Wheeler), Madame White Snake (winner of Pulitzer Prize in Music for composition by Zhou Long), and Gilgamesh (composer Paolo Prestini). In 2022, WSP received a three-year capacity building grant from Mellon Foundation for “their desire to combine a long-enduring art form and experimental technologies into contemporary narratives on behalf of a broadly diverse public.” 2022 also marked the launch of Tutti Remote Suite, WSP’s cutting-edge performance software that the Wall Street Journal described as “a remarkable new environment for operatic experimentation.” WhiteSnakeProjects.org

Established in New York City in 1998, the string quartet ETHEL sets the contemporary concert standard: “indefatigable and eclectic” (The New York Times), “vital and brilliant” (The New Yorker). ETHEL has performed across the United States and worldwide; released nine feature albums; guested on 40+ recordings; won a GRAMMY® with jazz legend Kurt Elling; and toured with Todd Rundgren & Joe Jackson. ETHEL is Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University, and Resident Ensemble at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Petrie Court Café. ETHELcentral.org

Hailed as “intensely soulful (The New York Times)” and “spellbinding (The New Yorker),” Syrian-born, Brooklyn-based composer/clarinetist Kinan Azmeh has gained international recognition for what CBC Radio has called his “incredibly rich sound” and his distinctive compositional voice across diverse musical genres. Azmeh brings his music to all corners of the world as a soloist and commissioned composer with leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony and the Deutsches Symphony Orchestra Berlin, and as a member of the Silkroad Ensemble with whom he won a Grammy Award. He is currently touring his latest album “Live in Berlin” with his Arab-jazz quartet CityBand. KinanAzmeh.com

One of today’s leading jazz labels, SMOKE Sessions Records celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2025. Recent releases have included George Coleman, George Cables, Eric Scott Reed, Nicholas Payton, Renee Rosnes, Wayne Escoffery, The Cookers, Peter Bernstein, and more. SMOKEsessions.com

Founded in 2013 by artistic director/conductor Gil Rose, Odyssey Opera presents adventurous and eclectic works that affirm opera as a powerful expression of the human experience. Hailed by The New York Times as “one of the nation’s most intriguing opera companies,” its world-class artists perform the operatic repertoire from its historic beginnings through lesser-known masterpieces to contemporary new works and commissions in varied formats and venues. Most recently, it was nominated for a 2023 Grammy “Best Opera Recording” for its “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” album. OdysseyOpera.org

Praised by The New York Times as an “excellent chorus” and “a treasured institution (Front Row Center),” Musica Viva NY is a superb chamber choir and world class collaborating instrumentalists making their concert home at Manhattan’s historic All Souls NYC. Musica Viva NY is a non-profit arts organization that was established nearly fifty years ago. Its mission is to bring world-class music to a wide community through an annual concert series, an active community engagement program, and an ambitious artistic vision. Under the baton of Artistic Director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez since 2015, Musica Viva NY strives to offer joy, solace and renewal in a complex world by presenting new compositions and classic masterworks in transformative interpretations that ennoble the human spirit. MusicaViva.org

The Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, also known as “The SASSY Awards”, is hosted every year by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). What has become one of the top annual vocal competitions in jazz, The SASSY Awards offers outstanding jazz singers a one-of-a-kind platform for embarking on a career in the music business—and offers audience members a chance to discover the jazz stars of tomorrow. Past winners have included: Cyrille Aimée, Jazzmeia Horn, Quiana Lynell, Laurin Talese, Samara Joy, Tyreek McDole, and more.

BMOP/sound, BMOP’s independent record label, was created in 2008 to provide a platform for BMOP’s extensive archive of music, as well as to provide widespread, top-quality, permanent access to both classics of the 20th century and the music of today’s most innovative composers. It is the recipient of a 2020 Grammy Award for Tobias Picker: Fantastic Mr. Fox as well as eight Grammy Award nominations, and its releases have appeared on the year-end “Best of” lists of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Time Out New York, American Record Guide, DownBeat, WBUR, NewMusicBox, and others. Admired, praised, and sought after by artists, presenters, critics, and audiophiles, BMOP and BMOP/sound are uniquely positioned to redefine the new music concert and recording experience. Launched in 2019, BMOP's digital radio station, BMOP/radio, streams BMOP/sound's entire catalog and airs special programming. BMOP.org

Hailed by The New York Times as “a triumph of quality,” the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival (CCCMF) has been presenting classical performances in venues across Cape Cod for the past 47 summers. The Festival’s current Artistic Directors Jon Manasse (clarinet) and Jon Nakamatsu (piano) represent the top ranks of American chamber music. Recent concerts have included Emerson String Quartet, Imani Winds, Borromeo, and more. CapeCodChamberMusic.org

An international award-winning harpist and composer, Kirsten Agresta-Copely is celebrating her recent 2024 “Best New Age/Chant/Ambient Album” Grammy Award nomination for her latest album Aquamarine. She for is hailed for her charismatic, telegenic presence on stage and known as the industry’s go-to harpist in the recording studio. An omnivorous artist steeped in rigorous classical training, Kirsten has performed with today’s leading artists including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Enya, The Roots, Lady Gaga, and Andrea Bocelli, to name a few. Her contributions to the world of music education are equally significant, having held esteemed positions at Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music and Sarah Lawrence College.

Hailed as one of this era’s most adventurous interpreters of the classical organ repertoire, leading female organist Gail Archer is an international concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor and lecturer. Ms. Archer was the first American woman to play the complete works of Olivier Messiaen for the centennial of the composer's birth in 2008. According to Gramophone Magazine, she has “superb musicianship, masterly technique and programming savvy.” She is the founder of Musforum, an international network for women organists to promote and affirm their work. Ms. Archer is college organist at Vassar College, director of the music program at Barnard College, Columbia University, She is artistic director at historic Central Synagogue, New York City. GailArcher.com