Discover Women in Jazz

Ale Avery Nuñez is a 23-year-old vocalist, arranger, songwriter and bandleader based in Toronto. Growing up on jazz and soul, Ale’s voice is timeless with a tone that is uniquely her own and leaves her audience hanging onto every note. Her influences range from Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, and Julie London to Feist and Norah Jones. Ale’s original music hybridizes genres and styles and her writing is vulnerable and honest. A recent graduate of the Bachelor of Music Degree at Humber College, Ale is creating a buzz in the music scene in Toronto and beyond and you can often see her perform regularly at many venues throughout Ontario. Ale was named “Artist of the Year” by the Toronto Undergraduate Jazz Festival in 2023 and 1st place recipient of the Etobicoke Jazz Festival’s Doc Awards 2022. Her focus in 2024 is to release her original music and begin recording an EP of beloved jazz standards.

Performance: Thursday, Aug. 1 • 7 p.m. ET

Elena Kapeleris is a Toronto based D’addario artist, vocalist, saxophonist, composer and educator. She has appeared on various recordings/live performances as a side musician (jazz, blues, R&B/ funk/pop, world music), has released one album as a leader and is currently working on a second release. A graduate of the Humber College Jazz Performance program, Elena has studied saxophone with world renowned saxophonist Pat LaBarbera, composition with the great Don Thompson, and voice with Shannon Gunn. She is currently a private instructor of voice and woodwinds at Centennial College. During Elena’s career, she has performed with many other recognized artists such as Kellylee Evans, Jackie Richardson, Jully Black, Brandi Disterheft, Pat LaBarbera, Neil Swainson, Hilario Duran, and many more. Elena has also recorded on various projects with Juno award winning engineer and producer Hill Kourkoutis. She has played Massey Hall, Roy Thompson Hall and the NAC in Ottawa multiple times with the Women’s Blues Revue. Kapeleris has performed with these great artists at many different venues in the city, as well as clubs and Jazz and Blues Festivals around the world.

Dánae Olano was born and raised in the musical melting pot of Havana, Cuba. She began classical musical studies at age 7 at the Alejandro García Caturla Music School, continuing at the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory of Music. She graduated from the University of Arts (ISA) in Havana as an accompanying and solo pianist, obtaining the Piano Cum Laude distinction. Her professional career began to blossom while studying in university. There, she made incursions into theatre music, being part of recognized companies like El Ingenio and Teatro de la Luna. During that time, she was also a co-founder of the band Alami, immersing herself and fellow Cuban-Canadian singer Dayme Arocena into jazz music. She was also a founding member of Banda XX, conducted by drummer Yissy García. Dánae is best known in North America as a founding member of the all-female band Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, which since its formation in 2013 has earned a Juno Award and been nominated on one other occasion, as well as earning a Grammy nomination. She is the band’s pianist and also sings, composes, and arranges for this renowned ensemble. Olano released her first album, Children’s Corner in March 2024 which contains original music as well as a powerful version of “Un Poco Loco” by Bud Powell.

Performance: Wednesday, August 14 • 7 p.m. ET

For many Canadian music fans, the name Joanna Majoko is a familiar one: the Toronto-based vocalist, composer, and bandleader has established a reputation as one of Canada’s most exciting young singers. Majoko has been a regular presence on the bandstand with some of the country’s top musicians, including Larnell Lewis of Snarky Puppy, Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, and David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears. She has performed at some of the world’s biggest festivals and historical venues such as the Montreal Jazz Festival, France’s Jazz sur son 31 Festival, Switzerland’s Internationales Jazz festival Bern and The Birdland Jazz Club in New York City. Majoko has also been the recipient of a number of notable accolades, including Emerging Jazz Artist at the 2021 Toronto Arts Foundation awards, Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2019 ByBlacks People’s Choice Awards, major grants from the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council and FACTOR, and has been a master class artist at multiple universities across Canada, such as McGill University, The University of Manitoba and the University of Toronto.
Born in Germany to German and Zimbabwean parents, Majoko spent the majority of her childhood in Zimbabwe, where she grew up speaking Shona and German and participating in choirs, musicals, drum ensembles, and traditional Zimbabwean dance groups. From Zimbabwe, Majoko moved briefly to South Africa; then, at the age of fourteen, she and her family moved to Manitoba. It was at the University of Manitoba that Majoko would become immersed in jazz and would hone her skills as a vocalist, composer, and bandleader. Later, a move to Toronto would prove to be the catalyst for the next stage of her career. In Toronto’s rich, multi-faceted musical community, Majoko has found a steady stream of festivals, radio stations, and club programmers who were eager to hear her voice, both as a guest vocalist and with her own successful group. Majoko has been a fixture at the Toronto Jazz Festival, on JAZZ.FM91, at clubs such as The Rex and Poetry, and at major venues, including the Harbourfront Centre and the Canadian Opera Company’s Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. In addition to her talents as a vocalist, composer, and arranger, Majoko has expanded her skills as a multi-instrumentalist, developing a sense of advanced rhythmic independence by incorporating percussion instruments into her performance practice. In 2021, she added another important entry to her list of accomplishments: the release of her debut EP, No Holding Back.

Nicole Sinclair-Anderson, A Toronto native, has a shared love of two things: God and music. Nicole is a graduate from Humber College with a diploma in Jazz Studies. There she honed her skills by studying with great instructors such as Trish Colter, Pat Labarbara, Lisa Martenelli, Denny Christianson, Shelly Berger and Don Thompson. She graduated in 1998 from Humber College and quickly started to use her God given gift becoming one of the most sought after studio musicians. A principle soloist with the Juno-awarding winning Toronto Mass Choir for over 20 years, Nicole has been featured on many of their gospel recordings and has also recorded with Aileen Lombardo, Hiram Joseph, Mark Masri, Laila Biali, Jenna Burke, Dave Brown and Anthony Brancati. Nicole has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Joe Hendricks, Alvin Slaughter, Andrew Craig, Larnell Lewis, Sam Williams, Corey Butler, Renee Rowe, Rob Brown, Matthew Burnett, Otis Williams, Toya Alexis and Shelly Berger, Isaac Cates, Julie Black and many other seasoned artists. Nicole was also on the inaugural television season of Canadian Idol, making it to the top 30. For over 8 years Nicole has been the Creative Arts Director at Malvern Christian Assembly and is always happy to share with others her unique vantage point of being not only an experienced singer/worship leader but also a seasoned gospel/jazz music artist/instructor.

Born in Western India, Agneya Chikte immigrated to Toronto in 2015. As a South-Asian diasporic, his arts practice draws on complex feelings around identity and migration, blending his musical heritage with learnings in jazz and contemporary music from studying under Pat LaBarbera, Mike Downes, Larnell Lewis and Mark Kelso at Humber College. Deeply influenced by groove and improvisation, his music enables audiences to enter a meditative state as they bear witness to his personal story and to the creation of new narratives, all anchored within universally shared cultural contexts. Having performed across India and Canada, Chikte has served as a juror for the Juno Awards and as the artistic associate for the Banff Centre’s 2021 Jazz & Creative Music Residency. In July of 2022, Chikte debuted at the TD Toronto Jazz Festival as a bandleader. In addition to leading his quartet, he performs with many internationally acclaimed Indian and Canadian artists.

Driven by an endless need to express herself creatively, composer and multi-instrumentalist Chelsea McBride is establishing herself as a mainstay of the Canadian and American jazz scenes. Now based in New York, McBride recently made her first international trip guest conducting at the Perth International Jazz Festival and Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival in support of her recent big band recording, Aftermath. She completed an 11-city cross-Canada tour with her big band, Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School, in the summer of 2018, and has performed at JazzYYC, the Halifax Jazz Festival, and the TD Toronto Jazz Festival, among others. She has been named one of Canada’s top 35 jazz musicians under 35 by the CBC and was the inaugural recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Jazz Artist Award. Born and raised in Vancouver B.C., McBride was surrounded and fascinated by music. She started playing piano at the age of 3, and saxophone throughout elementary school. By the end of high school she had already performed in competitions at provincial and national levels. She is currently pursuing a masters in jazz arranging at William Paterson University and making waves with her mature sound and multilayered approach to composition. Whether it’s her big band, Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School; her pop-jazz sextet, Chelsea and the Cityscape; or her jazz trio, the Chelsea McBride Group, McBride is a diverse musician who refuses to stay in one creative box.

Jazz saxophonist/composer Jacob Chung’s dynamic, blues-rooted commitment to swing has charmed audiences in his hometown Toronto and in New York City, where he is currently based. Having established himself as one of the most exciting players in Toronto, he relocated to NYC in 2022 to study with Vincent Herring at Manhattan School of Music. Herring’s mentorship and advocacy for Jacob’s talent led to the recording of Jacob’s sophomore album in December 2023 for the Cellar Music Group label, featuring both Herring and drummer Joe Farnsworth. In the summer of 2023, Jacob performed twice at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C., and at the Burlington Jazz Festival (VT) as a member of the prestigious Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program. Since moving to NYC, Jacob has also performed with Peter Washington, the Mingus Big Band, and the Erena Terakubo Septet. The Jacob Chung Quintet’s 2022 debut album Epistle was received with critical acclaim for its embodiment of the spirit of jazz; “A bunch of swingers that know the history without the baggage, they zip the ears open with a delightful sound that uplifts while it makes you smile” (Chris Spector, Midwest Record). Jacob’s aesthetic direction has drawn comparison to that of the 1990s neo-bop renaissance. Will Chernoff (Rhythm Changes) writes that “Jacob and the band are part of a full-on second generation of Young Lions,” a sentiment expanded upon by Jamie Lee Rake (Shepherd Express): “What they are about is connecting the dots between the sophisticated heat of jazz royalty such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie with a post-bop drive.” The Jacob Chung Quintet has played at several major Toronto venues and festivals including The Rex Hotel, The Jazz Bistro, TD Toronto Jazz Festival, TD Markham Jazz Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival. While in Toronto, Jacob garnered several Canadian accolades including the 2021 Hnatyshyn Foundation Oscar Peterson Grant and the 2019 Prince Edward County Jazz Festival Rising Young Star Award. He is featured on Jacob Wutzke’s 2019 EP Stop & Go and Thomas Steele 10tet’s 2020 album 10tet. He also appears on the University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra’s 2020 album Embargo. A budding educator, Jacob served as an assistant faculty member at Interprovincial Music Camp in 2019, directed the 2019/20 Hart House Jazz Combo under the supervision of Ernesto Cervini at the University of Toronto, and maintains private lesson studio at Classical Music Conservatory in Toronto.

Trinidadian-born Jesse Ryan is a saxophonist and composer with a keen interest in the connections between jazz and Afro-Caribbean musical traditions and communicating transcendent ideas through his music. His Juno-nominated debut album Bridges is “an aural explosion of stellar musicianship, that incorporates his explorations of his own cultural roots and expertise in the modern jazz idiom,” according to Medium Magazine. He’s the 2020 recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Jazz Artist Award. As a sideman, he’s performed and recorded with Rachel Therrien, Amhed Mitchel, Larnell Lewis, Joy Lapps, Daniel Barnes, JoJo Bowden, and Alex Bird. He’s been commissioned as a composer by the Nathaniel Dett Chorale to write the Virtues Suite for jazz quintet, string quartet and chorale. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Toronto Arts Foundation and is a P. Mauriat artist.

Photo: Robin Sassi

Pat and Tony Adams shared a deep love for each other, and for the arts. They were devoted fans of jazz music, theatre, improvisation and comedy, and had great respect and affection for those who dedicated their lives to pursuing these passions professionally. It’s not surprising then that all three of their children also went on to pursue careers in the arts.

The Pat and Tony Adams Freedom Fund for the Arts is a legacy fund that continues Pat and Tony’s tradition of encouraging such artists, giving them the opportunity to develop their skills and share their talents with audiences everywhere.

“I was absolutely delighted to be able to work with JAZZ.FM91 to create a unique opportunity to highlight the incredible talents of women in jazz, who we have yet to discover, and I am thrilled by this year’s recipients,” said Shari Hollett, administrator of the the Pat and Tony Adams Freedom Fund for the Arts.