“Soul songstress Ledisi makes her debut with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra this weekend, but it’s hardly her first go-round in such a setting,” writes Kevin C. Johnson in Wednesday’s (6/5) St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO). “She performed at the Kennedy Center for two sold-out shows with the National Symphony Orchestra a couple of years ago, has performed with the Count Basie Orchestra and New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and has other symphonic dates lined up. Long before all that, the New Orleans native performed with a big band in high school. ‘It has always been a thing I’ve wanted to do, and I want to keep doing it,’ says Ledisi, born Ledisi Anibade Young…. Performing with an orchestra in a concert hall, ‘You have to project like an opera singer … the old-school way,’ she says… ‘Symphony halls are so beautiful and have great sound…. The arrangements matter, the piano player matters, the conductor matters, every part matters. My part is telling the story.’ … With the SLSO, Ledisi will perform her own material and … music by Nina Simone; Ledisi has been touring with a ‘Nina and Me’ show. ‘She’s a part of my whole thing,’ Ledisi says.”
Posted June 6, 2019
