In an effort to reach new audiences, experience new performing venues and expand beyond the city limits, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra Pops will be paying tribute to the one and only jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. The Pops group will be led by Associate Conductor Gerald Steichen, and the guest vocalist will be Shaleah Adkisson. This performing organization will appear on Friday, October 9, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at East Haven High School, on Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at Hamden Middle School, and on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 3:00 p.m. at Shelton Intermediate School.
Ella Fitzgerald who was known as "The First Lady of Song," serenaded us for most of the twentieth century with sultry ballads, sweet jazz and an uncanny ability to imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She held the distinction of winning thirteen Grammy awards, selling over forty million albums, and working with all the geniuses of jazz including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman.
To learn more about her, you may consult Geoffrey Mark Fidelman's First Lady of Song: Ella Fitzgerald For the Record or Stuart Nicholson's Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz. Her remarkable voice may be heard on Cryin' Mood, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, Sing Song Swing, etc.
