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Jordan Rich: Cardiff Keyboard Wizard On A Global Stage
Source:
All About Jazz
In 2015, when Wales Online described Jordan Rich as the “Cardiff keyboard wizard,” the recognition wasn’t just for a promising up-and-comer—but for a 22-year-old who had made waves far beyond his native Wales, writes Jenny Ashcroft. Born in 1993, Rich had matured into one of the UK’s most gifted jazz fusion keyboardists and composers by his early twenties, with a reputation built not on hype but on an unmistakable musical intelligence and an ability to bridge genres. His early years ...
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Reconstructing The Map: Vatan Singh Rajan And The Expanding World Of Experimental Jazz
Source:
All About Jazz
If jazz is a conversation—spiraling out from smoky back rooms, bursting across imaginative borders—then Vatan Singh Rajan is not so much a new arrival as a visionary cartographer, continuously redrawing its frontiers in real time. The Delhi-born composer, drummer, music director, and theorist is revered by critics, peers, and educators across two hemispheres for startling originality and sweeping influence. But Rajan’s ascent is less the tale of youthful mimicry, as Leoni Griffith tells it, and more the stuff of prodigious ...
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Rin Nagaya ('123'): A Global Voice At The Edge Of Electronic, Pop, And Jazz
Source:
Frank Gazerro
In January 2025, at The NAMM Show in Anaheim, a crowd pressed toward AlphaTheta’s booth as a compact instrument called ChordCat purred to life. At the center was Rin Nagaya, who performs with the stage name “123." She is a Japan-born vocalist, composer, producer, and DJ and at AlphaTheta's booth, she was stringing harmony into motion, slipping from global grooves to jazz-inflected phrasing and back to beat-driven electronics without breaking a sweat. It was a perfect snapshot of her career ...
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The Pianist Who Sets The Season: Luping Robyn Xu
Source:
All About Jazz
In a region dense with conservatories, festivals, and storied churches, the artist who most quietly shapes what audiences hear is neither a headline-chasing soloist nor a transitory virtuoso. She is an architect. From the rostrum to the rehearsal room, from faculty studios to amphitheaters by the sea, Chinese pianist Luping Robyn Xu has become the musician institutions call when they need not just a performance, but a sound, a standard, and a season. Xu’s ascent has the arc of inevitability. ...
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The Institution-builder At The Keyboard: How Luping Robyn Xu Is Powering A New Era For New England’s Music Ecosystem
Source:
All About Jazz
The Chinese pianist Luping Robyn Xu has rapidly become one of the defining musical forces in New England, a marquee artist whose piano, leadership, and pedagogy are shaping the future of multiple top-tier institutions. Since 2024, she has held a leading post at the North End Music & Performing Arts Center (NEMPAC) as Lead Pianist and Piano Pedagogue, a role the organization has already extended through 2028. In that capacity, Xu is central to NEMPAC’s concerts, musical productions, events, and ...
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Virtuoso Without Borders—Luping Robyn Xu’s Cross-genre Mastery
Source:
All About Jazz
If one thread defines the career of Chinese pianist Luping Robyn Xu, it is a fearless versatility that traverses contemporary experiment, sacred reflection, chamber intimacy, and symphonic scale. On stage, on record, and within concert series that matter, Xu has delivered performances that connect tradition to today with uncommon authority—an artistry now set to make an even more significant imprint across the United States through 2028. As Lead Pianist for Ensemble Lyrae from 2025 to 2028, Xu is a core ...
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Educator, Bridge-builder, And Standard-bearer For Afro-peruvian Jazz, Arturo Valdez Leverages Past Laurels Into A Forward-looking U.s. Campaign
Source:
All About Jazz
Arturo Valdez’s ascent is not only measured in studio credits and club residencies; it is equally defined by education, scene-building, and culturally rooted collaborations that carry Afro-Peruvian rhythm into modern jazz. His upcoming U.S. work runs parallel to a sustained track record of masterclasses, civic concerts, and institution-level appointments in Peru and the United States—evidence of an artist who shapes the music from the bandstand and the classroom alike. Education is central to Valdez’s next phase. From 2025 to 2028 ...
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Grails Opens in New Haven, a Sanctuary for Audiophiles and Music Lovers
Source:
All About Jazz
Yale University Properties will welcome Grails, a music playground reimagining the record store as a cultural destination, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 1020 Chapel Street on Wednesday, October 22, at 11 a.m. with founder King Kenney and distinguished community partners including New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and Hope Chávez, executive director of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Nestled among The Shops at Yale, Grails embodies the lifelong passion of Kenney, a marketing executive, arts advocate, DJ, and music ...
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