Rose and the Nightingale

Rose & the Nightingale is four powerful New York based multi-instrumentalists and improvisers: Jody Redhage (voice, cello, compositions), Leala Cyr (voice, trumpet), Sara Caswell (violin, mandolin), & Laila Biali (voice, piano). The band’s warm sound of three part vocal harmonies, intricate arrangements, and burning solos has proven to cut through to a deeper level of connection with audiences. The band’s current project, Spirit of the Garden, inspired by Botanic Gardens, blurs the boundaries of jazz, folk, world, and chamber music. The performance integrates poetry about gardens and nature as the lyrics to the songs, as inspiration for improvised interludes, and as thematic threads through the concert. Rose & the Nightingale live performances have proven to uplift audiences with the power of the quartet’s fiery rhythmic energy, sublime harmonies, lyrical beauty, and staggering talent. Onstage, the band is a great demonstration of female strength.

Jody, Leala, and Sara met while touring to five continents over 14 months with Esperanza Spalding’s Chamber Music Society. Laila had recently settled in New York after extensive touring with Sting, Chris Botti, Paula Cole, and Suzanne Vega. Leala is currently in Esperanza’s Radio Music Society band. Jody has played with a host of people from Jay-Z and Beyonce to Neil Diamond, and Sara often tours with Gene Bertoncini and solos with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. The four band members are having an exciting time developing a new and fresh sound as Rose & the Nightingale.

Members of Rose & the Nightingale have performed internationally on five continents, at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Barbican in London, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, Chicago Symphony Hall, and at the world’s most prestigious jazz festivals including the North Sea (Holland), Montreal (Canada), Montreux (Switzerland), Newport (Rhode Island), San Francisco, and Cape Town (South Africa) Jazz Festivals, and Tokyo’s Blue Note. In 2012, Rose & the Nightingale performed the first ever concert at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, the first concert in 12 years at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles, and at San Diego’s Water Conservation Garden. 2013 season highlights include the official release of Rose & the Nightingale’s debut album Spirit of the Garden on Sunnyside Records May 7, concerts at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., at Mount Auburn in Cambridge, MA, and educational workshops and concerts as 2013 Ensemble-in-Residence at Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, NJ.