The Performers:

FRIENDSHIP, comprised of Jenny Xu (piano), Ben Feldman (bass), and Kofi Shepsu (drums), return to the west coast from NYC for a triumphant third tour. With a slew of new original music at hand, Xu, in the wake of having been the first Canadian woman selected as a Herbie Hancock International Jazz Competition (formerly Thelonious Monk Competition) semifinalist is guaranteed to dazzle backed by the incomparable talents of Feldman and Shepsu.  Hailed as one of the most versatile and dynamic up-and-coming instrumentalists on the scene, Ben Feldman is a multi-award winning bassist, composer, and educator currently based in NYC. He holds a Bachelor’s of Music in Jazz Double Bass Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Ron Carter and Buster Williams.  Kofi Shepsu is an African percussionist and studied the West African drums for 7 years under the master Baba Olumide, starting at age 4.  He is a 2018 graduate of Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology. Kofi was also awarded a full scholarship to Manhattan School of Music. While there he got to study with master musicians Buster Williams, Kendrick Scott and Marc Cary. His goal is to be a music ambassador for Jazz and has played with Savion Glover, Marc Cary, Rodney Whitaker, Charles Owens, Benny Benack III, and Julius Rodriguez.

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Nancy Zahn is a jazz and Broadway style vocalist, performing regularly on the Pacific Northwest Music scene, and a longtime Methow audience favorite. Her clear mezzo vocal stylings have been entrancing audiences since the age of nineteen. Her passionate vocals exude joy and heartbreak in the midst of a song. Audiences lean into her pin-drop ballads and swinging big band renditions of the old classics.  Nancy’s luminescent stage presence radiates raw emotion, drawing the audience in with her classic Hollywood style.

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Bill Anschell, pianist, composer, arranger, humorist and a 2016 Inductee, Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame.  Anschell’s own CDs have earned critical acclaim and widespread exposure. ​In 2005, Anschell received a Golden Ear Award as the “Northwest Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year,” and in 2006 his trio was named the “Best Northwest Acoustic Jazz Ensemble.” In 2010 and 2011 Anschell was again was named “Northwest Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year".  In 2013, he played several concerts with the Seattle Symphony.  Anschell is also well known as a jazz humorist, writing jazz vignettes and a monthly jazz etiquette column.  In 2014 he was a winner of the inaugural Paul Desmond Award, allaboutjazz.com’s celebration of the funniest jazz artists.

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Lynette Westendorf  is a composer, musician, and music educator who spent many decades here in the Methow.  An Emmy award winning composer who has composed for documentary film, orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice, chorus, and solo piano, Lynette is known in these parts as a pianist who performs solo and with various ensembles. Her Westendorf Jazz Trio, with Kirk Schumacher and Howie Johnson, was a mainstay of the scene for many years. She also teaches theory and composition and is a lecturer on various subjects musical.

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Bassist Chris Symer's Bio is an interesting mix of hyperbole and humility. Its main focus is the gritty yet humorous world of the working bassist. While its central theme seems to be jazz related, the
reader should not be put off, as it does venture into a handful of other musical styles as well. Entirely ignoring several notable failures while trying to play Salsa Music, there are favorable encounters mentioned with notable names within the Singer/Songwriter, Blues, Brazilian, and even Orchestral musical realms. While it would be expected for the author to have made quite a fuss over these names, Mr. Symer tends instead to talk little about them. The most significant and influential experiences he happily shares seem to have been with lesser known characters engaged in the same activity as he, that is, paying the bills by playing music. 
 

Will Lone is a drummer and improvising artist who has been immersed extensively in music since 1998, cultivating a multi-dimensional and melodic style of drum set playing. He performs regularly with numerous groups of different styles, and has worked with acclaimed musicians including David Haney, Rob Scheps, Nathan Breedlove, Jim O’Connor, and Tom Varner, among many others. Will draws from a diverse palette of musical influences, having studied tabla in India, gamelan music in Indonesia, African drumming, Afro-Cuban rhythm, jazz, and western classical music.

 

Writer, poet, and publisher Greg Wright is the author of a number of books in a wide range of genres. He is a member of the Methow's Confluence Poets. An ordained pastor of the arts in the non-denominational Christian church, for this program he chose to explore the poetic forms and expressions of faith in other systems of belief.

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Cindy Williams Gutiérrez is a poet, playwright, producer and educator. Her work is inspired by the silent and silenced voices of history, herstory, her own story and, most recently, ourstory. Born and raised on the Texas-Mexico border, she is fascinated by how language and culture reflect diverse world views and how peoples relate to the Divine Mystery through myriad spiritual traditions. She is a seeker who reaches for Spirit through poem-making, theatre-
making, teaching and dance—both on the earth and in water. You can find her poetry collections the small claim of bones and Inlay with Nacre: The Names of Forgotten Women at Methow Valley Goods and The Confluence in Twisp. Her new collection This Tender Geography—exploring family, mortality and forgiveness—is forthcoming this year.

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Greg Goad is a local guitarist, composer and flutist, amongst other talents.  He is a master of many styles of music, including jazz.  Currently, he is often heard performing with the drummer Will Lone all over the valley.

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Dave Nolet is NW Upright Jazz Bass player and sometimes guitar and bossa nova singer. He performs jazz throughout the NW and is Currently playing in the Marcus Duke Project. Formerly a member of the Brazilian music group "Arco Voz" with Jim Nolet and Marcia Lopez, performed throughout the East coast and NYC. Received a performance Arts degree from Cornish Institute, studying with Gary Peacock, Art Lande, and Julien Priester. He helped arrange ,compose, and record a Kirtan album with Steve Gold , “So much Magnificence” , which has received upwards of 6 million hits on Spotify.

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George Schneider performs regularly around the valley as a flutist, including in the popular Marcus Duke Project. He studied with James Newton and Jim Grantham.  He is the person behind the Methow Music Monthly, which he started in 2021, seeing the need for music and dance enthusiasts to have a comprehensive source for information about the local scene.  He lives in Twisp with his wife, Boo.

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Michael Kirshner - After years of portrait, figurative and landscape painting, valley artist Michael Kirshner found his artistic voice in non-objective art. His muse is often drawn from the physical senses or from more internal emotional or spiritual experiences. While Nature and the interconnected world is still an influencer for his new bodies
of work, it is now filtered through a deeper expressive and intuitive process. Color and form, shapes and objects, juxtaposition and contrasts, symbols and relationships all play roles in his narrative. Kirshner reinterprets his life experiences and combines them with social, spiritual, cultural and political influences to create a more personal response. His works are bold and colorful, startling and intense. They are the result of an inner reply to an external certainty that Kirshner seeks to ponder and within which he seeks meaning.

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