The Melissa Aldana Quartet at Yale Jazz Festival at Yale University Art Gallery

Melissa Aldana is an award-winning jazz tenor saxophonist and leader of the Crash Trio, also featuring bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Francisco Mela. At the age of 24, in September 2013, Aldana won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. She was the first female instrumentalist ever to win the competition. Part of her prize was a recording contract with Concord Jazz; the label issued Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio in the summer of 2014. The album earned wide critical notice and was invited to play some of the most prestigious jazz festivals in the world including the Playboy Jazz, Monterey, Umbria, Marciac, Pori, and Molde stages. She also played prestigious clubs including the Blue Note, Jazz Standard, Smalls and the Regatta Bar. She performed with Jimmy Heath at the 2014 NEA Jazz Masters Award Ceremony. In 2015, Wynton Marsalis invited her to the Jazz at Lincoln Center....

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Melissa Aldana is an award-winning jazz tenor saxophonist and leader of the Crash Trio, also featuring bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Francisco Mela. At the age of 24, in September 2013, Aldana won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. She was the first female instrumentalist ever to win the competition. Part of her prize was a recording contract with Concord Jazz; the label issued Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio in the summer of 2014. The album earned wide critical notice and was invited to play some of the most prestigious jazz festivals in the world including the Playboy Jazz, Monterey, Umbria, Marciac, Pori, and Molde stages. She also played prestigious clubs including the Blue Note, Jazz Standard, Smalls and the Regatta Bar. She performed with Jimmy Heath at the 2014 NEA Jazz Masters Award Ceremony. In 2015, Wynton Marsalis invited her to the Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Aldana's performance ends the Sixth Annual Jazz Festival at Yale, occurring April 13-15, which will feature concerts and talks from several leading figures in modern jazz, all free and open to the public.

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