EARLY BIRD tickets only available until mid-September! 
                                   NOTE: Names of advance ticket buyers will be on a list at the door for check-in!

     "Conversations in Jazz"

     Mads Tolling is a two-time Grammy Award-Winning violinist. Mads was born and raised in Denmark, where he started playing the violin at age six, busking the streets of Copenhagen with his sister. He moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, where he was discovered by legendary jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. This led him further west to join bassist Stanley Clarke’s band and the Turtle Island Quartet. Mads now leads his own groups, and he is a recent member of Bob Weir & Wolf Bros. Mads has performed at such venues as Radio City Music Hall, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and the Hollywood Bowl, to name just a few of particular note, and his recordings have been featured on NPR Morning Edition and in the Washington Post. Mads has twice been commissioned to write and perform violin concertos, including one for the late, great maestro Michael Morgan and the Oakland Symphony.
     This evening Mads returns to Piedmont Center for the Arts with a super group consisting of prolific pianist John R. Burr and Grammy-nominated vocalist Kenny Washington. Despite these three being established names in the Bay Area, it is only the fourth time the three of them will perform together. Mads and John will include music from such diverse composers as Chick Corea, Ornette Coleman, and the group Toto – not to mention themselves. Kenny Washington is one of the world’s premier jazz vocalists and a frequent guest at Wynton Marsalis’ Lincoln Jazz Center. Jazz writer Andrew Gilbert has called Kenny “The Superman of the Bay Area Jazz Scene.” Kenny will join Mads and John with songs from the American Songbook, broadly defined to include early R&B and pop, including the Temptations, Carol King, and jazz greats like Thelonious Monk and George Gershwin.