2025 Women's Jazz Fest: Sarah Elizabeth Charles

The Schomburg Center’s annual Women's Jazz Festival (WJF) is celebrating 33 years of centering Black women in the field of jazz. The Women’s Jazz Festival was founded in 1992 by then Harlem resident and jazz vocalist, Melba Joyce. Year after year, the festival and its curators have brought together musicians, dancers and a melding of musical genres to deliver an exciting series of concerts featuring some of the best-known and emerging talent by women in jazz today. The 2025 festival will be held in person on March 10,17, and 24.

Join us for opening night of the Women's Jazz Festival with Sarah Elizabeth Charles.

Sarah Elizabeth Charles’ Liberating the Bird project is a song cycle that infuses the rich poetry of Dr. Maya Angelou with melody, rhythm and harmony. Charles started writing songs for this project in 2016 and has slowly been developing it with her duo partner, Jordan Peters on guitar ever since. More recently, Charles also collaborated with Black women arrangers and instrumentalists, Juliette M. Jones & Monique Brooks Roberts, who have written arrangements for this song cycle that include voice, guitar, string quartet and percussion. Angelou’s writing, performing and identity as a prolific artist has had an enormous influence on Charles and this project pays homage to her enormous artistic contributions. Charles’ only wish in offering this music is to honorably hold space for the wise words and fruitful experience that Angelou offers the world.

#WJF2025 #SchomburgLive

General Admission $35 // Schomburg Society Member* $25 (Plus Eventbrite fees)

*Enter promotional code to reveal membership ticket . For more information, contact the Schomburg Society Office at [email protected] or 212.491.2252

March 10: Somi

March 17: Sarah Elizabeth Charles Liberating the Bird featuring Juliette M. Jones & Monique Brooks Roberts

March 24: Carnegie Hall Citywide: Camille Thurman, saxophonist and vocalist

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OPEN SEATING Ticketed guests will begin seating 30 minutes before start time.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture