Wesla Whitfield

Wesla Whitfield is a remarkable singer, with a deep love for that rich storehouse of musical treasures often identified as The Great American Popular Songbook.

Wesla has been developing her skills and learning her demanding craft for a number of years - by her own estimate, it's been ever since she "knew at age two-and-a-half that I would grow up to be a singer."

A picture of Wesla at a Piano Her sound and approach would seem to place her somewhere in the intriguing area that borders on both jazz and that aspect of pop music which draws its material largely from the great standards and neglected gems of such as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hart.

Wesla Whitfield was born in Santa Maria, California. The youngest of three girls, she experienced routine childhood music training (piano lessons at age 7, sang in church, studied voice - "classical, of course" - at about age 14). She did discover her mother's extensive sheet music collection at an early age, "and used it to sight-read." Serious radio and record listening provided some important influences including Rosemary Clooney, the Hi-Los, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine and Dean Martin.

Among her earliest professional experiences was a mid-70s stint with the San Francisco Opera as a salaried chorister.

Wesla, with her husband/pianist/arranger, Mike Greensill performs annually throughout the country in concert halls and fine show rooms. Together Mike and Wesla have opened at Michigan's Meadowbrook, New Jersey's Garden State Art Center and Flint Center in Cupertino for such notables as George Burns, Michael Feinstein and Frankie Laine.

Solo symphonic appearances include two concerts with the San Francisco Symphony as well as San Jose, Sacramento, Omaha, Stockton, Napa, Auburn, Concord Pavilion, Santa Rosa, Peninsula and California Symphonies.

Wesla has appeared twice on Garrison Keillor's national show, "Prairie Home Companion", singing with the legendary trumpeter, the late Joe Wilder, on 'Weekend Edition' with Susan Stamberg, 'On Fresh Air' with Terry Gross, on All Things Considered' with Robert Siegel, and the highly revered Marian McPartland PBS 'Piano Jazz' series.

In TV venues, the pair have been featured numerous times on the Charles Grodin show, performed on the Regis and Kelly show, and were the subject of a feature story on America's favorite TV show, 'CBS Sunday Morning' with Charles Osgood. In summer of '95 Wesla and Michael appeared as part of the JVC Jazz Festival at Avery Fisher Hall in New York and also made their Carnegie Hall debut that same summer. Since, they've been invited to return to both venues on numerous occasions. In June of '96 they were invited by Hillary Clinton to perform at the White House.

Their twenty-two recordings, have received rave reviews from Jazz Times and many other national publications. The October 2005 issue of Oprah Magazine hailed Wesla as "a phenomenal woman" in a detailed three page article. Their latest CD, recorded in May of 2011 during their annual run at the 'Feinstein's' in San Francisco, is titled "Best Thing For You - Live from the Rrazz Room" and was released in November 2011.

As invited members of the repertory company and the ongoing salute to American Popular Song at Lincoln Center, Whitfield and Greensill perform often in New York as well as prominent Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis venues. Most recently Wesla was seen as Martha Watson in the St. Louis MUNY's production of 'White Christmas'.

Together Whitfield and Greensill conduct scheduled Master Classes at Notre Dame De Namur in Belmont and Napa Colleges in Napa Valley and throughout the country as well as teaching privately. In the Bay Area, their ongoing vocal workshop series provides vocalists from all over the country with invaluable instruction in the interpretive skills so necessary and integral a part of the Great American Popular songbook. Show less