Wynton Marsalis Hosts Conversations with Fellow Artists in 'The Arts, Undistanced' - Presented by Washington Performing Arts

(Washington, D.C.)— Pulitzer-winning composer, trumpet virtuoso, band leader, and educator Wynton Marsalis teams up with Washington Performing Arts in The Arts, Undistanced: Online Artist Conversations Beyond Boundaries, a series of video interviews to be offered free of charge. The online series launches today, March 12, on the Washington Performing Arts website.

A companion program to Washington Performing Arts’s paid-admission Home Delivery Plus series, The Arts, Undistanced features Marsalis as host and in candid conversations with fellow performing artists: opera singer J’Nai Bridges, jazz singer Veronica Swift, and classical cellist Steven Isserlis. With no prescribed topics or boundaries of genre, the series transcends the typical interview format to engage deeply with key issues in our society and culture, and the ever-evolving role of the arts.

The series premieres with the J’Nai Bridges conversation on Friday, March 12 at 4:30PM ET via Facebook Live, YouTube, and the Washington Performing Arts website. Premiere dates for the remaining episodes will be announced at a later date but will take place shortly before the guest artists’ Home Delivery Plus premiere dates: May 21 for Steven Isserlis (in a trio performance with pianist Evgeny Kissin and violinist Joshua Bell) and May 28 for Veronica Swift.

Wynton Marsalis and Washington Performing Arts have a history of collaboration dating back to Marsalis’s early years as a solo artist. Washington Performing Arts first presented him in concert in 1983 and was also the D.C. concert presenter of such Marsalis career milestones as Blood on the Fields (1997) and Suite for Human Nature (2004), along with the premiere of the revised edition of Blues Symphony (2015). Through Washington Performing Arts’s wide-ranging arts education programs, Marsalis has also contributed great amounts of time and knowledge to aspiring high school and college musicians over the years. The Arts, Undistanced takes this collaboration into the online space for the first time, offering the possibility of its widest reach and impact to date.

The Arts, Undistanced is made possible through the generous support of an anonymous donor and Northern Trust.

ABOUT WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS

One of the most established and honored performing arts institutions in America, Washington Performing Arts has engaged for more than half a century with artists, audiences, students, and civic life. The city is truly our stage: for decades, in venues ranging from concert halls and clubs to public parks, we have presented a tremendous range of artists and art forms, from the most distinguished symphony orchestras to both renowned and emerging artists in classical music, jazz, international genres, and more. We also have an ever-expanding artistic and educational presence on the internet, addressing the programming challenges of this time of pandemic while envisioning ongoing opportunities for online connection and community in a post-COVID world.

Washington Performing Arts deeply values its partnerships with local organizations and other arts institutions. Through events online and in myriad performance venues and neighborhoods, we engage international visiting artists in community programs and introduce local artists to wider audiences. We place a premium on establishing artists as a continuing presence in the lives of both young people and adults through residencies and education programs.

Our achievements have been recognized with a National Medal of Arts and with three Mayor’s Arts Awards from the DC Government. We have now embarked upon our second half-century, ever inspired by the motto of our founder, Patrick Hayes: “Everybody in, nobody out.”

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