9TH SEASON SUMMER FUNDRAISER
August 20th, 2020 @ 7:30 pm
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Clayton Piano Festival invites you to a special fundraising event in preparation for the upcoming Fall 2020 season. The concert will be broadcast in HD audio and video with multiple camera angles and feature Artistic Director, Jonathan Levin with guest artist Joy Jan Jones, Soprano performing music of Beethoven, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, more. The concert can be viewed on our Facebook Page on August 20th at 7:30 PM EST. The link will be available a week prior.
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Artists
Joy Jan Jones is a versatile artist in high demand. She is an independent, multi-genre singer, instrumentalist, writer, producer, and model. NYC based, she has been featured at Carnegie hall, Lincoln Center, Rockwood Music Hall, and New York Fashion Week 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Born and raised in Houston, Joy has a Bachelor of Music from Sam Houston State University and a Master of Music from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. While in Potsdam she completed her graduate thesis and initial training in Music Therapy with special needs and autistic children.
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As a writing member of ASCAP, Joy is also Director of Music & Guitar at Camp Junior Feliz and Camp Mariah Carey, where she exclusively plans and participates in all music related activities at the Fresh Air Fund camps every summer since 2014.
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Joy is a professional opera singer, and is well sought after in particular, for new opera roles and premier works. She curates concerts around art or theme singing: arias, oratorio, chamber music, spirituals, Lieder, Mélodie, chorale, gospel, folk songs, and more from several different countries. She has performed recently at LongHouse Reserve, The Fort Greene Association, and National Sawdust in Brooklyn.
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In July 2019 during production of the world premiere of This is the Ground; an interactive, musical journey mapping an American refusal to surrender on the grounds of the Old Stone House in Brooklyn where the battle actually took place in 1776), Joy was featured in a 10 minute special about the life of an opera singer and independent artist on NHK TV in Japan. She has also been featured in NYC’s Timeout magazine twice.
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Joy is director of social media and a veteran singer for the founding NYC chapter of Opera On Tap; an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting opera as a viable, living and progressive art form, supporting developing artists who continue to keep it alive.
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In Fall 2018 Joy performed at the Vogue CDFA awards as a singing model for Pyer Moss. In September 2019 she appeared again, this time making the cover of the Vogue Magazine article that praises designer Kerby Jean-Raymond for being a black cultural activist through his work; using live music and musicians, especially of color, in his runway expositions.
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This year, Joy teamed up with composer Willie Alexander and MET opera superstar J’Nai Bridges to create the music for the February 5, 2020 fashion show for SKIMS by Kim Kardashian West, where her voice is the prominent feature of the composition.
Praised by the New York Concert Review as “much more than a pianist, but a musician with a fine mind and enormously promising creative energy”, Jonathan Levin has established himself as a compelling advocate for classical music, creating integrated programs that garner closer connections with audiences through illuminating discussion and example.
Jonathan presented a special performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia as a part of the 4th Melody of Generations Festival with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation, and has made solo appearances in major venues across the US including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and Beneroya Hall. He has been a laureate of many competitions and prizes including the National Stillman-Kelley Award, 2nd Prize at the 2012 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition and recipient of the Alan Walker Award from the American Liszt Society.
Jonathan is Artistic Director and Founder of Clayton Piano Festival in Clayton, NC which presented its 8th season of concerts, public classes, school outreach and other community events in the fall of 2019. The festival creates accessible, educational, world-class concerts and music presentations that uniquely enrich the cultural life of the region.