Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Charleston Jazz and Melissa Aldana

Press Release

As Hispanic Heritage Month comes to a close, the Charleston Jazz Orchestra offers the perfect cultural finale to the celebration with Saxophone Supernova, featuring the prestigious Blue Note Records artist and Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana. The October 21st concert will showcase Aldana’s highly-acclaimed original works Los Ojos de Chile and La Madrina, as well as some of the greatest hits of her saxophone heroes through the generations, including works by John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Henderson. There will be two opportunities to catch the concert, with shows at 5 pm and 8 pm at the historic Charleston Music Hall in downtown Charleston. Tickets are available online at charlestonjazz.com and by phone at 843-641-0011.

“We in the CJO are honored to get the chance to work with one of the modern masters of jazz, Melissa Aldana,” said Robert Lewis, Director of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra. “Ms. Aldana is a complete virtuoso saxophonist, both in raw technique but also in her unique expressive devices. She is also one of the most interesting composers working today, and getting a chance to explore her music in the big band context is very exciting.”

Melissa Aldana was born in Santiago, Chile, and grew up in a musical family. Both her father and grandfather were saxophonists, and she took up the instrument at age six under her father Marcos’ tutelage. Aldana began on alto, influenced by artists such as Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley, but switched to tenor upon first hearing the music of Sonny Rollins. She performed in Santiago jazz clubs in her early teens and was invited by pianist Danilo Pérez to play at the Panama Jazz Festival in 2005. At the age of 24, Aldana became the first female instrumentalist and the first South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition.

Aldana moved to the U.S. to attend the Berklee College of Music, and the year after graduating, she released her first album, Free Fall, on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle label in 2010, followed by Second Cycle in 2012, and later her third album, Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio, on the Concord label.

Melissa is an in-demand clinician and educator. She was recently appointed to the jazz faculty at New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department in the fall of 2021.

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