Origins is excited to co-host two-time Grammy nominee Melissa Aldana as part of First Presbyterian Church’s Music for Mission Series. Melissa Aldana has established herself as one of the THE sounds of her generation, garnering the highest recognitions in Jazz: winner of the 2013 Thelonious Monk Competition, Blue Note Recording artist, and two Grammy nominations.

This concert will be on May 23rd at 7:30pm at First Presbyterian Church. Tickets are free, with a requested donation during the performance that goes to Seedleaf!

The Artist

Saxophonist and composer Melissa Aldana was born in Santiago, Chile. 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.

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. In 2013, at 24, she became the first female instrumentalist and the first South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, in which her father had been a semi-finalist in 1991. After her win, she released her third album Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio (Concord).

Aldana was one of the founding members of ARTEMIS, the all-star collective that released their debut album ARTEMIS on Blue Note in the Fall of 2020. The album featured Aldana’s simmering composition “Frida,” which was dedicated to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who inspired the musician through “her own process of finding self-identity through art.”

Will you be in to this?

Aldana’s celebrated 2019 album Visions (Motéma) earned the saxophonist her first-ever GRAMMY nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo. In naming Visions among the best albums of 2019 for NPR Music, critic Nate Chinen wrote that Aldana “has the elusive ability to balance technical achievement against a rich emotional palette.” Listen to her most recent album, “Echoes Of The Inner Prophet”, here.