Grammy-Nominated Jazz Violinist Sara Caswell at The Press Room June 20

Portsmouth, NH--Grammy-nominated jazz violinist, Sara Caswell will perform two evening shows on Saturday, June 20, at The Press Room in Portsmouth. Performing with Caswell will be vocalist/bassist David Thorne Scott, guitarist Eric Byers, and pianist Mark Shilansky, all outstanding musicians and professors at Berklee College of Music.

The first show will begin at 5:45 p.m. (with doors opening at 5 p.m.). The second show will begin at 8:05 p.m. (with doors opening at 7:20 p.m.). The Press Room is located at 77 Daniel St. Tickets for reserved seating are $23/person. Tickets at the door on the day of show are $32.

Raised in a musical family, Caswell started studying classical violin at age 5, but early on became interested in jazz violin and studied at Indiana Unversity and Manhattan School of Music. In 2018 she was nominated for a prestigious Grammy Award for "Best Improvised Jazz Solo" in addition to numerous other accolades throughout her illustrious career 

David Baker, an internationally renowned jazz educator and Director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, referred to Caswell as ""...a brilliant world-class violinist...one of the very best of the present generation of emerging young jazz stars."  Voted into the DownBeat Magazine Critics and Readers Polls every year since 2013, Sara has released three highly-acclaimed albums under her own name – The Way to You (2023), But Beautiful (2005), and First Song (2000). She has been part of groups led by Esperanza Spalding (Chamber Music Society), Linda Oh (Aventurine), and David Krakauer (The Big Picture), and has performed and/or recorded with artists and ensembles including the WDR Big Band, Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, Donny McCaslin, Henry Threadgill, Dave Stryker, Helen Sung, Miho Hazama, Christian Sands, Regina Carter, Kishi Bashi, and Bruce Springsteen. 

She is a member of Joseph Brent's 9 Horses trio, Chuck Owen's The Jazz Surge, and the Caswell Sisters Quintet (a group she co-leads with her sister, vocalist Rachel Caswell). In 2013, Sara and Rachel joined forces with Grammy®-nominated jazz pianist Fred Hersch and recorded the album Alive in the Singing Air to rave reviews and its selection by jazz critic Thomas Cunniffe as one of the year's “Best Vocal CDs” on Jazz History Online. Sara has performed at Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, SFJazz, Disney Hall, Barbican, and Blue Note (NYC and Tokyo), and at jazz festivals including Newport, Montreal, Montreux, North Sea, Banlieues Bleues, and Saratoga Springs, among others.

Caswell is on faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and New York University,

She will be performing at The Press Room with the group "OnWeGo" comprised of Caswell, Scott, Byers, and Shilansky. The music will be punctuated by vocal harmony, creativity, and collective improvisation. They will. perform original songs side-by-side covers by such artists as Cole Porter, Crowded House, Leonard Cohen, and Hall and Oates.

The shows are sponsored by the Seacoast Jazz Society, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in New Hampshire whose mission is to: 1) foster a love of jazz and jazz history in the community, 2) support and promote local musicians, and 3) provide scholarships and education for young artists.

To reserve seats and for more information about the musicians go to: https://www.seacoastjazz.org/onwego.

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