For the past 10 years, executive director Sandy Evans has managed to come up with some highly innovative programming for the annual North Carolina Jazz Festival. With the 2017 edition coming up early in the new year (Feb. 2-4), she and her Board are kicking off the 37th edition on Thursday night with the Sea Pans, a local steel drums ensemble presenting Jazz a la Trinidad, followed by a 75-minute concert by six-time Grammy Award nominee Nnenna Freelon and her trio, and wrapping up the evening with "Professor” Adrian Cunningham and his Old School with a sampling of the more traditional jazz that will be on tap for the rest of the weekend.
Sea Pans leader Vince Stout, a classically-trained double bassist, meticulously hand crafts and tunes steel barrels (pans) to bring the popular music of the Caribbean to Coastal Carolina.
Nnenna Freelon starred in the critically-acclaimed show, Georgia on My Mind: Celebrating the Music of Ray Charles, and is currently the writer, composer and producer of an original theatrical presentation, The Clothesline Muse, which combines music, dance, spoken word, vibrant art and projections. She has also dedicated herself to educating young people, both musicians and non-musicians, and for four years, toured the United States as the national spokesperson for Partners in Education. Her advice to young and old is “follow your dreams, dedicate yourself,
