Dayna Stephens Bio

Dayna Stephens is globally recognized as a saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator. His new quartet with Emmanuel Michael, Kanoa Mendenhall, and Jongkuk Kim has a new recording set to be released on Cellar Live in early 2024.

A graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, where he studied under artistic icons Terence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancock, Dayna began his formal studies with a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music and William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.

He was the first-place recipient of the 2019 DownBeat Critics Poll in the category Rising Star-Tenor Saxophone. His 10th album, Right Now! Live at the Village Vanguard, was released on October 3, 2020 and features Aaron Parks, Ben Street, and Greg Hutchinson. Earlier that year he released his 9th album Liberty to critical acclaim. It was his first trio recording that features Ben Street and Eric Harland. Both 2020 albums were produced by Matt Pierson and released on Dayna’s own label, Contagious Music. In collaboration with drummer Toronto native Anthony Fung the futuristic electronic band Pluto Juice was born and produced it’s self titled first release in July 2021. 

Among Dayna’s latest endeavors is a collaborative group born in Toronto called Pluto Juice. Co-led with drummer Anthony Fung this futuristic electronic group features Dayna mostly on EWI and Keyboards along with Electric Bassist Rich Brown and Guitarist Andrew Marzotto band Pluto Juice was born and produced it’s self titled first release in July 2021. Rhythmic dialogue excites the Brooklyn-born, Bay Area-raised artist, as both an improviser and a written composer. His creative expression leads him to uncover different rhythmic interpretations of harmonic ideas as part of a spontaneous interchange with other players. These evolving interpretations help serve Dayna’s commitment to the authenticity of the moment, whether he’s playing live or in the studio. And his rhythmic inquiry has earned him the attention and admiration of some of the music’s most beloved drummers—many of whom have collaborated with him on recordings, on the bandstand and on the road, including Al Foster, Idris Muhammad, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Billy Hart, Marcus Gilmore, Bill Stewart, Eric Harland, Johnathan Blake, Jaimeo Brown, Brian Blade, Victor Lewis, Lewis Nash, Jorge Rossy, Jeff Ballard and Justin Brown.

Helen Sung Bio

Helen Sung is an acclaimed jazz pianist and composer and a Guggenheim Fellow. A native of Houston, Texas, and alumna of its High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, she diverged from her classical upbringing after encountering jazz during undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Helen went on to become part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute (renamed the Herbie Hancock Institute in 2019) of Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music, and win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition.

Sung’s Quartet+ (Sunnyside Records) garnered a 4.5 star DownBeat review and inclusion in its "Best of 2021 Albums" list, and a JazzTimes cover story (January 2022 issue), while previous releases Sung With Words (Stricker Street), a collaborative project with renowned poet Dana Gioia, and Anthem For A New Day (Concord Jazz) topped the jazz charts. In addition to her own band, Helen has performed and toured with such luminaries as the late Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band.

Activities of note in 2023 include a west coast tour featuring Quartet+ made possible by a South Arts Jazz Road Grant; debut shows by her large ensemble project “Big, Band, & Beyond,” at Dizzy’s Club Jazz at Lincoln Center; and guest performances and residencies at schools including the New England Conservatory, UNT, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Fashioned as a protest against anti-Asian violence, Helen’s streaming series “Re-Orientation: Asian American Artists Out Loud” (made possible by a Chamber Music America Digital Residency grant) featured her quartet collaborating with a poet, a Hip Hop artist, and an installation artist in a series of interdisciplinary events showcasing the range and diversity of Asian American artistry. She also partners with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, the Zuckerman Institute’s Public Programs, and Arts & Minds to present programs centered on the neuroscience behind making/hearing music to engage those living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Helen’s 2021 Guggenheim fellowship was applied toward a multi-movement composition for big band: one of the movements, “Wayne’s World,” won the 2022 BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize.

Helen has served on the jazz faculties of the Berklee College of Music and the Juilliard School. She is currently visiting faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an Associate Professor at Columbia University, where she was also the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its prestigious Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, exploring the intersection of jazz and neuroscience. Helen is a Steinway Artist.