The Kennedy Center Reveals Participants of the 23rd Annual Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead

The Kennedy Center has revealed the 2023 cohort of the 23rd iteration of its annual international professional development program Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead. Led by Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, Jason Moran, the two-week residency at the Kennedy Center REACH includes training in performance, composing, and career development. The Jazz Ahead program identifies outstanding, emerging jazz artists and composers in their teens to age 25, and brings them together under the tutelage of experienced artists/instructors who coach and counsel them, polishing their performance, composing, and arranging skills.

Sixteen talented young musicians from the United States, Norway, Ukraine, Great Britain, South Korea, and Canada were selected by a competitive audition process. Joining Moran to lead the residency are six renowned jazz artists: saxophonist Melissa Aldana, drummer Clarence Penn, pianist Benny Green, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, double bassist Linda May Han Oh, and vocalist/saxophonist Camille Thurman. This year’s residency will also include a special private session with the Jazz Houston Youth Orchestra. The residency will conclude with two free performances showcasing the young jazz artists’ original compositions on June 7th and 8th at 6 p.m. on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage and a special free performance on Friday, June 9, at 5 p.m. on the Waterfront Stage of the Burlington Jazz Festival, Burlington, VT.

Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead 2023 Participants

About Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead

Betty Carter founded Jazz Ahead as a vehicle to foster the musical talents of future generations of jazz artists. She originally developed the program in 1993 at 651, an arts center in Brooklyn. In 1997, the late Dr. Billy Taylor (Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, 1994-2010) invited Carter to bring Jazz Ahead to Washington, D.C. The inaugural class of Kennedy Center Jazz Ahead students presented an unforgettable concert with Carter herself joining them on the Kennedy Center Concert Hall stage. Jason Moran, then a young pianist from Houston, was selected by Carter to be a student in this first year at the Kennedy Center. Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead had a new home and Carter was filled with hope for the future of the program. After Carter’s untimely death in September 1998, the Carter family graciously granted the Kennedy Center the opportunity to continue her legacy by making the program an annual Kennedy Center event.

Distinguished alumni from Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead include pianists Jason Moran, Matthew Whitaker, and Aaron Parks; guitarist Lage Lund; trombonist Andre Hayward; bassist Ameen Saleem; violinist Miri Ben-Ari; vocalists Charenee Wade and Jazzmeia Horn; saxophonists Marcus Strickland, Grace Kelly, and Jon Irabagon, and drummer Jamison Ross, among others.

About Jazz at the Kennedy Center

Kennedy Center Jazz, under the leadership of Artistic Director Jason Moran, presents legendary artists who have helped shape the art form, artists who are emerging on the jazz scene, and innovative multidisciplinary projects throughout the year. Annual Kennedy Center jazz events include the NEA Jazz Masters Concert, in which the National Endowment for the Arts awards the prestigious Jazz Masters fellowship to four individuals;  Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead, a professional development residency program for young artists,; NPR’s A Jazz Piano Christmas, the Kennedy Center holiday tradition shared by millions around the country via broadcast on NPR; and the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival, created in 1996 by the late Dr. Billy Taylor (Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, 1994–2010).