Events' Realm

A virtuosic bass player. Her voice is capable of acrobatics. . . . Her lyrics are poetry.


—NPR


An artist who defies categorization beyond the descriptor ‘brilliant.’


—Isthmus


A five-time Grammy winner, humanitarian, activist, and educator, acclaimed jazz bassist and vocalist esperanza spalding has, in her illustrious career, continually and brilliantly married genres, pushed boundaries, and created groundbreaking art. Her work interweaves through various combinations of instrumental music, improvisation, singing, composition, poetry, dance, therapeutic research, storytelling, teaching, regenerative agriculture, urban land and artist sanctuary custodianship, and growing in love while collaboratively decolonizing within and through her hometown community. She has performed at the Oscars, the Grammys, the Nobel Prize ceremony, and the White House.


As a musician, composer, vocalist, and lyricist, spalding is expansive, iterative, shape-shifting, open, and progressively innovative. A voracious and magnetic performer who has shared the stage with Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monae, and Prince, spalding is attentively studious towards what the process of playing live presents to the structure of a song.

Phoenix

United States

Arizona

4725 E. Mayo Blvd.

Musical Instrument Museum (MIM)

Esperanza Spalding

Stradivarius and the Golden Age of Violins and Guitars presents more than 70 of the most extraordinary and sought-after string instruments from iconic European makers of the 16th to the 19th century. Spectacular violins, guitars, lutes, and bows show how exceptionally skilled makers elevated fine string instruments into timeless masterpieces that remain astonishing today.

Stradivarius and the Golden Age of Violins and Guitars Exhibit

Join Café Allegro for a five-course dinner and wine pairing. Napa wines from iconic estates and appellations pair perfectly with a special menu designed by MIM executive chef Paul Steele and pastry chef Vanessa Bejar. Dinner will be served family style at community tables of 8 in MIM’s Main Courtyard.


Passed Hors d’Oeuvres


Crostini, whipped white beans, truffle oil, lemongrass, spicy microgreens (VEG)


Wine pairing: 2023 Ghost Block Morgaen Lee Sauvignon Blanc, Yountville, Napa Valley


First Course


House-made focaccia and sun-dried tomato butter (VEG)


Wine pairing: 2023 Elizabeth Rose Chardonnay, Yountville, Napa Valley


Second Course


Pomodori Arrostiti
Arizona baby greens, gem lettuce, Crow’s Dairy feta, piquillo peppers, pickled onion, Cerignola olives, radish, cucumber, red verjus vinaigrette (VEG, GF)


Wine pairing: 2023 Elizabeth Rose Pinot Noir, Yountville, Napa Valley


Third Course


Whole Slow-Roasted Leg of Pork with Rosemary Jus
Roasted herbed heirloom potatoes, roasted cauliflower with romesco,
roasted organic on-the-vine Campari tomatoes (all sides VEG)


Wine pairing: 2021 Elizabeth Rose Chockablock Red Blend, Yountville, Napa Valley


Fourth Course


Mixed Berry Crisp with Ube Purple Yam Gelato (VEG)


Wine pairing: 2021 Oakville Winery Zinfandel, Oakville, Napa Valley


$125 per person
Includes meal, wine, taxes, and gratuity


Reservations required


* To request a full vegetarian or vegan meal, call 480.245.6982 or email thomas.painter@guestservices.com [thomas.painter@guestservices.com].

Café Allegro at MIM

Wine Dinner at Café Allegro

A joyful, head-bobbing set of masterful jazz.


—NPR


Detroit-raised bassist and composer Endea Owens is one of jazz’s most vibrant emerging artists. She has been mentored by jazz icons such as Marcus Belgrave, Rodney Whitaker, and Ron Carter, and she has toured and performed with Wynton Marsalis, Diana Ross, Solange, and Jazzmeia Horn, to name a few.


In 2018, Endea graduated from Juilliard and joined the Late Show with Stephen Colbert as a member of the house band. Since then, Owens has won an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Peabody. In 2022, Owens composed for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra a piece about the life of Ida B. Wells called “Ida’s Crusade”; it was also performed by Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz orchestra. Her debut album, Feel Good Music, arrived in 2023.

Endea Owens and the Cookout

A living encyclopedia of the best popular music that the West has ever produced.


—James Taylor


World-renowned guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli has dedicated many of his albums to the great songwriters and performers who helped establish the Great American Songbook and the pop music canon. On his latest album, Stage and Screen, Pizzarelli and his remarkable trio explore the Broadway stage and the silver screen for more immortal songs from the past century.


The album’s cleverly chosen repertoire spans nearly nine decades, starting with a pair of songs from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette (“I Want to Be Happy” and “Tea for Two”) and leading into the 21st century with “I Love Betsy” from Jason Robert Brown’s Honeymoon in Vegas. In between, there are pieces by such iconic songwriters and composers as Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Leonard Bernstein, Sammy Cahn, and Jule Styne, as well as songs immortalized in cinema favorites such as Casablanca.


Pizzarelli is joined by his trio, which features bassist Mike Karn and pianist Isaiah J. Thompson, two tremendous talents with whom Pizzarelli has discovered a scintillating chemistry.

John Pizzarelli Trio

Alex Amsel, conductor
Rolf Haas, violin


Vivaldi’s Autumn concerto depicts a merry harvest dance and the sleepy countryside. Piazzolla’s Otoño sets a melancholy mood of fall. Michael Schacter’s Five–Six–Seven–Eight takes its title from the count-in familiar to musicians on a bandstand or dancers in rehearsal. Each of the four miniatures is inspired by folk and classical dance styles from around the world. 


Concert Repertoire Includes
Vivaldi: Autumn from The Four Seasons
Piazzolla: Otoño Porteño from Estaciones Porteñas
Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll

Autumn

Follow the career of Charles Lloyd, and you see a map of great jazz across half a century.


—New York Times


Charles Lloyd has long been a free spirit, master musician, and visionary. For more than six decades, the legendary saxophonist and composer has loomed large over the music world, and at 86 years old he remains at the height of his powers and as prolific as ever.


His 1966 album Forest Flower: Live at Monterey, recorded at the Monterey Jazz Festival, became one of the first jazz records to sell a million copies. He also headlined other rock palaces, sharing billings with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Cream, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane. In 1967, Downbeat voted him Jazz Artist of the Year.


In 2023 and 2024, Lloyd, now an NEA Jazz Master and recipient of the prestigious l’Ordre Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres honor, was again voted Downbeat’s Jazz Artist of the Year, as well as Tenor Saxophonist of the Year.


In Ocean Trio, Lloyd is joined by celebrated pianist Gerald Clayton and guitarist Anthony Wilson.

Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio

Haley Heynderickx’s songwriting is crushingly intimate, vivid, melodically inventive, and completely unpredictable. Her debut album I Need to Start a Garden seamlessly contrasts her unconventional tunings and American Primitive–inspired fingerpicking with enveloping sonic outbursts. Led by her raw, immersive vocals, the Portland songwriter’s music defies categorization.


Tonight, Heynderickx’s songs are backed and augmented by the Westerlies, a brass ensemble of two trumpets and two trombones that has worked with Fleet Foxes, Conrad Tao, Aoife O’Donovan, and others.

Events at Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), United States