James Falzone's Sighs Too Deep for Words

Friday, January 27, 2023, 7:30 pm

Join acclaimed clarinetist, penny whistle player, composer and improvisor (and Saint Mark’s parishioner) James Falzone for a night of original music composed specifically for the distinct acoustical environment of Saint Mark’s Cathedral. Joining James will be vocalist and sound artist Johnaye Kendrick; pianist, vocalist, and sound artist Kaley Lane Eaton; and Palestinian/American oud player and vocalist Ronnie Malley.

Artist Bios

James Falzone is a clarinetist, composer, and improviser whose work in the jazz and creative music scenes has won him international acclaim. A veteran contemporary music lecturer and clinician, as well as an award-winning composer who has been commissioned by chamber ensembles, dance companies, choirs, and symphony orchestras around the globe, Falzone leads his own ensembles (Allos Musica and The Renga Ensemble), and has released a series of critically-acclaimed recordings on Allos Documents, the label he founded in 2000.

Falzone performs throughout North America and Europe, appears regularly on Downbeat Magazine's Critics' and Readers' Polls, and was nominated as the 2011 Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association. He has been profiled in The New York Times, The Seattle Times, The Chicago Tribune, New Music Box, and Point of Departure, among many other publications. A respected educator and scholar, Falzone has been on the faculty of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Deep Springs College, North Central College, and was a fellow at The Center for Black Music Research.

Johnaye Kendrick was born and raised in San Diego, CA. She received a Bachelor of Music from Western Michigan University in 2005. During her time at Western Michigan, she received a DownBeat Student Music Award for Outstanding Jazz Vocalist, and was featured in an honors recital with pianist Fred Hersch. In the fall of 2007, Ms. Kendrick was accepted to the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

While attending the Thelonious Monk Institute, Johnaye worked with many outstanding jazz musicians, including Terence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Danilo Perez, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Brian Blade. She received an Artist’s Diploma from the Thelonious Monk Institute and a Masters Degree in Jazz Studies from Loyola University in 2009.

After graduating from the Monk Institute, Johnaye was immediately hired by trumpeter Nicholas Payton, who raves “Johnaye has the potential to be a vocalist of the highest order; the likes of which we have seen seldom since the grande dames of the golden era of jazz roamed about the earth. She’s got IT!” In addition to her many travels with the Nicholas Payton SEXTET, Johnaye has also been a featured vocalist with the Ellis Marsalis Quartet and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. The Orchestra won a Grammy® Award in the 2009 for “Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album” category for their release Book 1 on which Ms. Kendrick is featured.

Johnaye has performed at numerous festivals, concert halls and jazz clubs, including the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Rio das Ostras Jazz Festival, Burghausen Jazz Festival, International Jazz Festival Bern, Playboy Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club, Jazz Gallery, Chicago Symphony Center, Snug Harbor and Birdland with Nicholas Payton, Ellis Marsalis, Sean Jones and John Ellis. She has also performed with her own band at the Earshot Jazz Festival, Lima Jazz Festival, Royal Room, Tula’s, Festival Sundiata, NW African American Museum, Chihuly Gardens and other venues.

Johnaye performs her own original compositions as well as fresh interpretations of beloved jazz and pop compositions. She focuses on graceful renditions of jazz standards and composes music and lyrics where she often accompanies herself on harmonium, violin, viola and percussion. The legendary Jimmy Heath says that “Johnaye is not just a vocalist. She is a complete musician with a beautiful instrument and open ears.”

A dedicated educator, Johnaye resides in Seattle, WA where she serves as Professor of Music at the Cornish College of the Arts. In 2014, she recorded, produced and released her debut CD, Here, for the johnygirl label. Featuring 12 of Johnaye’s original compositions. In the spring of 2018, Kendrick returned to the studio to record her sophomore album, Flying, for the johnygirl label, which is scheduled to be released in August of 2018. Flying finds her supported by pianist Dawn Clement, bassist Chris Symer and drummer D’Vonne Lewis.

A conservatory-trained classical pianist and vocalist who fell into creating electronic music shortly after a stint playing Baroque lute, Seattle composer, singer-songwriter and producer Kaley Lane Eaton’s music is colored by this eclecticism. Her “disconcertingly lovely” (Seattle Weekly) compositions combine innovative digital processes with ancient performance practices, questioning humanity’s growing dependence on technology and the resulting exploitation of the planet. Most recently, her work has been commissioned and performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Modern Orchestra, the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company (NYC), and Karin Stevens Dance, and has enjoyed support from such organizations as the Jack Straw Cultural Center, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, the Allied Arts Foundation, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and 4Culture.

Her debut solo album cedar, an electro-chamber pop song cycle oriented in both art song and ambient IDM, came out in February 2022 on Bright Shiny Things. Cedar, both origin story and manifesto, captures a distinct Pacific Northwestern aesthetic: tuneful beauty, solitude, and destructive noise.

In addition to frequently performing her own work as a vocalist, pianist, and laptop wizard, she is an avid collaborator, enjoying both traditional commissions and unconventional creation with choreographers, solo artists and chamber ensembles across the country. With flutist/composer Leanna Keith and violist/composer Heather Bentley, Eaton co-directs Kin of the Moon, an improvisation-centric and technology-friendly chamber troupe in Seattle. KOTM reflects Eaton, Keith, and Bentley’s collective values: that the pursuit of higher vibrational states, whether through Music, movement, artistic creation, scholarship, or any kind of curiosity, is the destiny of humanity, and is the birthright of every person on this beautiful planet.

As a writer with particular interest in the role of classical music's relationship to feminism, education, and our larger culture, Eaton has been published by KING FM's Second Inversion ("Women, Creativity, and the Classroom" (2016) and "Reflections on Wilderness" (2017)) and Common Tone Arts (“Hit the reset button: Rethinking how we teach music technology” (2020) and "Things I wish I had known when I thought I couldn't be a composer" (2017)).

Eaton holds a DMA in composition from the University of Washington and and is an Associate Professor at Cornish College of the Arts. She lives in a little blue house in Seattle with her fiancé Rian, dog Nikos, and the many, many plants, birds, bugs, and slugs in their garden.

Ronnie Malley is a multi-instrumentalist musician, theatrical performer, producer, and educator. He has collaborated with artists internationally, composed and consulted for many cultural music projects in film and theater, appeared as a guest artist on several works, and is executive director of Intercultural Music Production in Chicago. Ronnie has a degree in Global Music Studies from DePaul University and is a teaching artist with Chicago Public Schools, Global Voices Initiative, and Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, a faculty member at Old Town School of Folk Music, and a guest lecturer at universities. He is an international artist and has performed with the music groups Allos Musica, Apollo’s Fire, Diwan Al-Han, EMME (East Meets Middle East), Lamajamal, Mucca Pazza, Newberry Consort, Surabhi Ensemble, and the U of C Middle East Music Ensemble.

Heading photo by Don Clapp.

Host or Publisher Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral