Dayna Stephens & Billy Childs Duo at Healdsburg Jazz Festival at Paul Mahder Gallery

This is a rare opportunity to hear these two amazing musicians in a duo concert. Dayna Stephens is not a stranger to Healdsburg, but Billy Childs will be performing here for the first time. Stephens and Childs both have new releases, on Gratitude and Rebirth respectively. They will be featuring original compositions from both releases as well as playing songs from Horace Silver, Hogie Carmichael and others.

A three-time Grammy winner, pianist Billy Childs has emerged as one of the foremost American composers of his era, perhaps the most distinctly American composer since Aaron Copland – for like Copland, Childs has successfully married the musical products of his heritage with the Western neoclassical traditions of the twentieth century in a powerful symbiosis of style, range, and dynamism....

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This is a rare opportunity to hear these two amazing musicians in a duo concert. Dayna Stephens is not a stranger to Healdsburg, but Billy Childs will be performing here for the first time. Stephens and Childs both have new releases, on Gratitude and Rebirth respectively. They will be featuring original compositions from both releases as well as playing songs from Horace Silver, Hogie Carmichael and others.

A three-time Grammy winner, pianist Billy Childs has emerged as one of the foremost American composers of his era, perhaps the most distinctly American composer since Aaron Copland – for like Copland, Childs has successfully married the musical products of his heritage with the Western neoclassical traditions of the twentieth century in a powerful symbiosis of style, range, and dynamism.

Saxophonist Dayna Stephens is a recipient of the number-two spot for the 2017 DownBeat Critics Poll in the category “Rising Star—Tenor Saxophone” He has garnered critical acclaim over the years for his playing, compositions and arrangements. A master of tenor, soprano and baritone saxophones and acoustic bass, Stephens’s openness and sensitivity as an artist have allowed him to stretch as a composer and arranger. To hear his music is to fall in love with whatever instrument Stephens uses to channel his ideas.

Just over a month ago Stephens and Childs completed a run at The Blue Whale in Los Angeles, as the Dayna Stephens Quintet. Other musicians included Philip Dizack (trumpet), Dave Robair (bass), and Jonathan Pinson (drums). Several of their numbers are now live on YouTube, including the following:

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