Jazzed for CBT
International touring artist Marianne Solivan, an SU faculty member, will perform at the CBT Gala.
Jazz singer Marianne Solivan has made a name for herself as a hard swinging, passionate vocalist who has a commanding stage presence and is able to captivate audiences with her joyous exuberance. The release of her fifth album, “Re-entry,” in June, has only increased demand for her talents—she regularly performs at jazz clubs and festivals across the northeast and beyond, and averages two European tours a year.
Since fall 2020, she’s scheduled those performances around her teaching schedule as an assistant professor of jazz voice at Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music, typically commuting to Syracuse to teach Monday through Wednesday from her home in Brooklyn. “The type of education that we do in the music school is very personal. It's a lot of one-on-one. It's a lot of growing really close with your students. I absolutely love that teaching,” she says.
Because the School of Music is small, Solivan says it is not a robustly diverse space. That’s one reason she was captivated by the audience when performing at the CBT Gala in 2021. “It was an unbelievable thing to see that community come out. So spectacular, with so many folks reaching such high levels in virtually every industry you could imagine. It was beautiful experience,” she says. “I was just thrilled to be under that tent surrounded by those folks. I had a blast.”
Because the pandemic was still ongoing, the cancellation of another performing group led to the opportunity for Solivan to bring some of her students to perform. “It was a fantastic experience for them. They felt so much love and support in that space,” she says.
Solivan is looking forward to bringing her professional band from New York City to Syracuse to perform at the CBT Gala on Sept. 14. “Honestly, I’m so happy that they asked me back,” she says.
Her audience is in for a treat. The NYC Jazz Record calls Solivan “among the most promising distaff jazz singers to emerge in the new millennium.”
Grammy-award winning jazz bassist Christian McBride acclaims “the lushness and fullness of her voice and her amazing sense of communication. . . . Lay back and dig this super bad lady.”
Solivan grew up singing in church and school, honing in on musical theater in high school. She went to the Boston Conservatory to major in musical theater but only lasted a year. Three years later, she started at the Berklee College of Music, where she majored in performance and music education. It’s also where she began focusing on learning to sing jazz. “It felt like a very good fit, stylistically and personality-wise,” she says.