Nashville, Tenn. (TN Tribune) – Nashville Symphony is excited to kick off the 2022/23 Jazz Series with GRAMMY® Award-winning powerhouse vocalist and actress Ledisi for one night only at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center happening Sunday, November 6. Following the critically acclaimed release of her 2021 album Ledisi Sings Nina, the acclaimed performer brings her stunning orchestral tribute to the iconic singer, songwriter and activist Nina Simone. Joined by your Nashville Symphony, she’ll revisit classic Simone selections including “My Baby Cares Just for Me,” “Four Women,” “Feeling Good,” “Wild Is the Wind” and more. Tickets are available now at nashvillesymphony.org/ledisi.
2021 GRAMMY® Award-winner Ledisi is a fourteen-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated powerhouse vocalist with a career spanning almost two decades. Over her career, she has garnered three Soul Train Music Awards, an NAACP Theater Award and thirteen NAACP Image Award nominations. Most recently, Ledisi received two LA Alliance Ovation Award nominations.
Ledisi Sings Nina is the culmination of a series of projects revealing the depth of Ledisi’s continuing sense of gratitude and debt to the woman born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, whom Ledisi calls her “shero.” In the past eight years, Ledisi has produced and toured popular tribute shows to Simone, and performed concerts on television, in major concert halls and at music festivals, featuring her interpretation of Simone’s songs and explaining her importance and history. In 2019, she wrote and starred in the autobiographical theatrical production The Legend of Little Girl Blue that ran for three weeks. “What I’m doing now with my version of her music is honoring it with my own experience,” says Ledisi, “which means touching and agreeing and moving into a newer version.”
Born in New Orleans, LA and raised in Oakland, CA, Ledisi has truly earned a place in the pantheon of the greatest singers of her generation. She is a favorite of the Obamas as well as a long list of icons including Prince, Patti LaBelle, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan and many more. In 2008, Ledisi landed a role in her first feature film, singing in the George Clooney-directed Leatherheads. In 2015, she portrays the great Mahalia Jackson in the Oscar-nominated movie Selma, and she has a notable performance in Gabourey Sidibe’s Shatterbox Anthology film, The Tale of Four. Ledisi secured her first television role playing the legendary Patti LaBelle on the hit BET series, American Soul, and she also starred in BET+ drama Twice Bitten.
This year, Ledisi landed the starring role in the film Remember Me: The Story of Mahalia Jackson. She will also portray the incomparable Gladys Knight in the long-awaited film based on Neil Bogart’s career and the story of Casablanca Records, Spinning Gold.
Great seats are available starting at $41 (while supplies last, additional fees apply).
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Performance Details:
Ledisi
Nashville Symphony
Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor
Sunday, November 6 at 7:30pm
Schermerhorn Symphony Center | 1 Symphony Place | Nashville, TN
Ticket Link: nashvillesymphony.org/ledisi
Tickets for Ledisi Sings Nina may be purchased:
– Online at nashvillesymphony.org/ledisi
– Via phone at 615-687-6400
The GRAMMY® Award-winning Nashville Symphony has earned an international reputation for its innovative programming and its commitment to performing, recording, and commissioning works by America’s leading composers. With more than 140 performances annually, the orchestra offers a broad range of classical, pops and jazz, and children’s concerts, along with an extensive selection of education and community engagement programs. The Nashville Symphony has released 40 internationally distributed recordings on Naxos, which have received 27 GRAMMY® nominations and 14 GRAMMY® Awards, making it one of the most active recording orchestras in the country. The orchestra has also released recordings on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and New West Records.
In addition to support from Metro Arts and Tennessee Arts Commission, Nashville Symphony is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534 awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Nashville Symphony is also supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
