sisters in jazz
photo credit René Huemer & Cherie Hansson
SISTERS IN JAZZ
COLLEGIATE COMBO COMPETITION
APPLICATIONS OPEN
JULY 1 – OCTOBER 15
In an effort to support JEN’s overall commitment to represent and cultivate diversity and inclusion in jazz, the Jazz Education Network (JEN) Women in Jazz Committee re-established the Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition. Through this exemplary program, full-time university students identifying as young women or non-binary jazz artists ages 18-29 will audition and be selected to perform in the Sisters in Jazz quintet.
Applicants must be JEN members in order to apply.
You will be asked to login to your JEN member account to submit an application
Not a member?
2026 Sisters in Jazz Co-Directors
TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON & ELLEN ROWE
2026 Sisters in Jazz Selectees will rehearse and receive feedback from a new director each year.
The quintet will prepare a selection of charts to premier at the 17th annual JEN Conference in New Orleans, LA, January 7-10, 2026.
Celebrating 40 years in music, NEA Jazz Master and four-time GRAMMY® award-winning drummer, producer and educator, Terri Lyne Carrington started her professional career in Massachusetts at 10 years old when she became the youngest person to receive a union card in Boston. She was featured as a “kid wonder” in many publications and on local and national TV shows. After studying under a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music, Carrington worked as an in-demand musician in New York City, and later moved to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for both the Arsenio Hall Show and Quincy Jones’ VIBE TV show, hosted by Sinbad.
While still in her 20’s, Ms. Carrington toured extensively with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, among others. In 2011 she released the GRAMMY® award-winning album, The Mosaic Project, featuring a cast of all-star women instrumentalists and vocalists, and in 2013 she released, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, which also earned a GRAMMY® Award, establishing her as the first woman ever to win in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category.
To date Ms. Carrington has performed on over 100 recordings and has been a role model and advocate for young women and men internationally through her teaching and touring careers. She has toured or recorded with luminary artists such as Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, Woody Shaw, Clark Terry, Diana Krall, Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, James Moody, Yellowjackets, Esperanza Spalding, Kris Davis, Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, and Nancy Wilson.
In 2019 Ms. Carrington was granted The Doris Duke Artist Award, a prestigious acknowledgment in recognition of her past and ongoing contributions to jazz music. Also in 2019, her collaborative project, Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science (formed with Aaron Parks and Matthew Stevens), released their album, Waiting Game, inspired by the seismic changes in the ever-evolving social and political landscape. The double album expresses an unflinching, inclusive, and compassionate view of humanity’s breaks and bonds through an eclectic program melding jazz, R&B, indie rock, contemporary improvisation, and hip-hop. Waiting Game was nominated for a 2021 GRAMMY® award and has been celebrated as one of the year’s best jazz releases by Rolling Stone, Downbeat, Boston Globe and Popmatters. Downbeat describes the album as, “a two-disc masterstroke on par with Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 hip-hop classic, ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’…” and garnered three of their critics poll awards, Album of the Year, Group of the Year and Artist of the Year. Ms. Carrington was also named Artist of the Year by Jazz Times Critics Polls, the Boston Globe, and the Jazz Journalists Association.
Ms. Carrington has received honorary doctorates from Manhattan School of Music, York University and Berklee College of Music, where she currently serves as the Founder and Artistic Director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, which recruits, teaches, mentors, and advocates for musicians seeking to study jazz with racial justice and gender justice as guiding principles.
She has curated musical presentations at Harvard University, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the John F. Kennedy Center, and has enjoyed multi-disciplinary collaborations with esteemed visual artists Mickalene Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems and is also the artistic director for Detroit’s multi-disciplinary arts organization, the Carr Center.
In 2022, the curator and activist authored two books; a children’s book entitled Three of a Kind, on the making of the Allen Carrington Spalding trio, and the seminal collection, New Standards:101 Lead Sheets By Women Composers, another illustration of how she has worked tirelessly to fight for inclusivity and raise the voice of women, trans and non-binary jazz musicians. Accompanying the book is her latest album, new STANDARDS vol.1, featuring 11 selections from the songbook with an all-star band.
The album, which ranges from ballads to experimental compositions, is timely and adventurous, exploring the multiverse of jazz, with Carrington (drums and percussion) joined by Kris Davis (piano), Linda May Han Oh (bass), Matthew Stevens (guitar), and Nicholas Payton (trumpet) and welcomes special guests trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, vocalists, Melanie Charles, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, electronic artist, Val Jeanty, guitarist, Julian Lage, flutist Elena Pinderhughes, percussionist Negah Santos and vocalists, Melanie Charles, Samara Joy, Michael Mayo, Dianne Reeves and Somi. In 2023, the album won a GRAMMY® Award for the best jazz instrumental album.
Carrington also curated a multi-media installation to accompany and expand on the message of the New Standards book and new STANDARDS vol. 1 album. The installation premiered at Detroit’s Carr Center, and was later featured at the Emerson Contemporary Media Art Gallery in Boston.This ambitious series of projects were created to shine a light on women composers in historic new ways.
Ms Carrington serves as co-executive producer and musical director for the newly formed Jazz Music Awards and is a 2022 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ellen Rowe, jazz pianist and composer, is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan. Prior to her appointment in Michigan, she served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut.
Ms. Rowe has performed at jazz clubs and on concert series throughout the U.S., as well as touring in Europe, South Africa and Australia. CDs out under her own name include “Sylvan Way”, “Wishing Well”, “Denali Pass” and “Courage Music.” Her latest project, “Momentum – Portraits of Women In Motion”, featuring Ingrid Jensen, Tia Fuller, Marion Hayden and Allison Miller was released to widespread critical acclaim in January 2019. The “Momentum” band will be featured at the 2022 Jazz Education Network Conference. Also active as a clinician, she has given workshops and master classes at the Melbourne Conservatory, Hochshule fur Musik in Cologne, Grieg Academy in Bergen and the Royal Academy of Music in London, in addition to many appearances as a guest artist at festivals and Universities around the country.
When not leading her own small groups, she is in demand as a sideman, having performed with a wide variety of artists including Kenny Wheeler, Tim Ries, Frank Morgn, Tom Harrell, John Clayton, Ingrid Jensen and Steve Turre. She was also a guest on two installments of Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” on National Public Radio.
Ms. Rowe’s compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by jazz ensembles and orchestras around the world, including the Village Vanguard Orchestra, BBC Jazz Orchestra, U.S. Navy Commodores, Berlin and NDR Radio Jazz Orchestras, London Symphony, DIVA and the Perth Jazz Orchestra. Many of these works can be heard on recordings including “Leave It To DIVA”, “The Perth Jazz Orchestra”, “Bingo” (The Bird of Paradise Orchestra) and “I Believe In You” (DIVA). A recipient of jazz ensemble commissions from the Minnesota Band Directors Association, Illinois Music Educators, Lawrence University’s Fred Sturm Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Education Network, her big band compositions are currently published by Sierra Music Publications, Doug Beach Music and Kendor Music.
Having been selected to conduct the NAfME All-Eastern and All-Northwest Jazz Ensembles as well as All-State jazz ensembles throughout the country, she has also been an invited clinician at the National Association for Music Education Eastern Division Convention, International Society for Jazz Composition and Arranging Symposium and Jazz Education Network conferences. She is on the Board of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers and also serves as the Coordinator for the JEN Sisters In Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition. Other activities include serving as an adjudicator and mentor for the JEN Young Composers Showcase, adjudicating the 2019 Kimmel Center Jazz Residencies and Lincoln Center Ertegun Hall of Fame. She also serves on the faculty of the NJPAC All-Female Jazz Residency in Newark, NJ. In 2017 she was named a UCROSS Composer Fellow and awarded a residency at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
APPLICATION INFORMATION
DEADLINE: OCTOBER 15
Sisters in Jazz alumnae include such renowned artists as
Sara Caswell, Dawn Clement, Anat Cohen, Summer Camargo, Anne Drummond, Rosana Eckert, Tia Fuller,
Linda May Han Oh, Tina Raymond, Chihiro Yamanaka, and many more.
AND NOW, YOUR NAME CAN BE ADDED TO THE LIST.
All applicants must be:
- A full-time college student, concurrently taking a minimum of 12 undergraduate hours or six graduate hours
- A JEN Full Individual or eJEN Member
All applicants must submit the following by October 15th:
1. An application (submitted through getAcceptd.com)
2. Recording Submission: Preferred format mp3 (M4A or wav files also accepted)
- Four individual audio recording files of your best playing, total recording time not to exceed 25 minutes. (Video recordings not accepted.):
- a ballad
- a medium-tempo blues (swing)
- an up-tempo rhythm changes tune (swing)
- a straight eighth tune (Latin, rock, funk, or original composition)
- Vocalists and horn players: play the head, take several choruses of solo and take the head out.
- Pianists, bassists and guitarists: comp the changes or walk a chorus before soloing if not also accompanying a horn or vocal soloist and demonstrating those abilities. Using an existing recording that is not specifically in this format will be also be accepted, however.
- Drummers: Everyone should play “Now’s the Time” as the blues selection and play the melody orchestrated around the set on the head in and out. Blues and rhythm changes should include trading 4s or full chorus solos. One tune, either blues or rhythm changes should include time playing with brushes as well as sticks. If some individual tracks are longer and include several soloists, indicate on the application at what time trading or solo choruses begin on those tracks.
3. One letter of recommendation
- You will submit the email address of one recommender in your application.
- Upon submission of the application, they will receive an email with a link to upload the letter on your behalf to Acceptd.
4. A bio, resume, or CV listing pertinent musical experiences.
5. A headshot or photo
- File should be print quality (high).
- File types accepted include: jpg, gif, and png.
- Label your photo file as follows: LastNameFirstNameJENSIJPhoto
6. An official copy of college transcript or other proof of concurrent full-time enrollment in an accredited college, university, or conservatory (a minimum of 12 undergraduate or six graduate hours)
The 2026 Sisters in jazz collegiate combo is sponsored in part by
2025 sisters in jazz selectees
past sisters in jazz selectees
2025
- Maria Kolesnik – Drums
- Halimah Muhammad – Bass
- Tess Overmyer – Saxophone
- Marisa Cravero – Vocal
- Izzy Chase – Piano
2024
- Gianna Pedregon – Violin
- Jeongmin Ha – Piano
- Nanami Haruta – Trombone
- Marion Mallard – Bass
- Maria Marmarou – Drums
2023
- Destiny Diggs-Pinto – Bass
- Holly Channell – Drumset
- Kal Ferretti – Trumpet
- Lana Drincic – Piano
- Charlotte Lang – Sax
2022
- Molly Redfield – Bass
- Carmen Murray – Drumset
- Stephanie Tateiwa – Sax
- Yeeun Kim – Piano
- Summer Camargo – Trumpet
2021
- Jordyn Davis – Bass
- Minnie Jordan – Violin
- Megan Lock – Drums
- Alexandra Ridout – Trumpet
- Yvonne Rogers – Piano
- Samantha Spear – Sax
2020
- Domi Edson – Bass
- Misaki Nakamichi – Drums
- Maya Keren – Piano
- Kate Williams – Trumpet
- Zahria Sims – Saxophone
2019
- Colleen Clark – Drums
- Sarah Hanahan – Alto Saxophone
- Summer Kodama – Bass
- Marion Powers – Voice
- Franchesca Romero – Piano
2009-2018
- The Jazz Education Network (JEN), founded in 2008, formed the Women in Jazz Committee in 2018, and re-established the Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition.
2008
- Ashley Baker – Alto Sax
- Christie Dashiell – Voice
- Judith Goldbach – Bass
- Julia Brav – Piano
- Shirazette Tinnin – Drums
2007
- Chelsea Baratz – Tenor Sax
- Sharel Cassity – Alto, Soprano Sax
- Vanessa McGowan – Bass
- Mika Nishimura- Piano
- Tina Raymond – Drums
2006
- Misty Boyce – Piano
- Caroline Davis – Alto Sax
- Lauren Falls – Bass
- Melissa Gardiner – Trombone
- Lorie Wolf – Drums
2005
- Lakecia Benjamin – Alto Sax
- Jacquelyn Coleman – Trumpet
- Delandria Mills – Flute
- Hanne Pulli – Drums
- Maeve Royce – Bass
- Carmen Staaf – Piano
2004
- Ariel Alexander – Alto, Soprano Sax
- Brenda Earle – Piano
- Maria Joyner – Drums
- Linda Oh – Bass
- Janelle Reichman – Tenor Sax
2003
- Kara Baldus – Piano
- Elizabeth Goodfellow – Drums
- Nicole Johaenntgen – Alto, Soprano Sax
- Jennifer Krupa – Trombone
- Ashley Summers – Bass
2002
- Renee Marie Cruz – Bass
- Alyssa Falk – Drums
- Becky Noble – Alto Sax
- Tineke Postma – Alto Sax
- Daniela Schaechter – Piano
2001
- Airelle Besson – Trumpet
- Laila Biali – Piano
- Karine Chapdelaine – Bass
- Tara Davidson – Alto, Soprano Sax
- Sandra Hempel – Guitar
- Kimberly Thompson – Drums
2000
- Brandi Disterheft – Bass
- Anne Drummond – Flute
- Lisa Kelly Scott – Voice
- Karen Teperberg – Drums
- Chihiro Yamanaka – Piano
1999
- Rosana Calderon Eckert – Voice
- Rachel Eckroth – Piano
- Tia Fuller – Alto Sax
- Karin Harris – Trombone
- Erin Marie Roberts – Bass
- Angie Tabor – Drums
1998
- Sara Caswell – Violin
- Dawn Clement – Piano
- Anat Cohen – Tenor Sax, Clarinet
- Loraine Faina – Drums
- Jodi Proznick – Bass
program coordinatorS
Sisters in Jazz Program Coordinator
ELLEN ROWE
Ellen Rowe, jazz pianist and composer, is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan. Prior to her appointment in Michigan, she served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut.
Ms. Rowe has performed at jazz clubs and on concert series throughout the U.S., as well as touring in Europe, South Africa and Australia. CDs out under her own name include “Sylvan Way”, “Wishing Well”, “Denali Pass” and “Courage Music.” Her latest project, “Momentum – Portraits of Women In Motion”, featuring Ingrid Jensen, Tia Fuller, Marion Hayden and Allison Miller was released to widespread critical acclaim in January 2019. The “Momentum” band will be featured at the 2022 Jazz Education Network Conference. Also active as a clinician, she has given workshops and master classes at the Melbourne Conservatory, Hochshule fur Musik in Cologne, Grieg Academy in Bergen and the Royal Academy of Music in London, in addition to many appearances as a guest artist at festivals and Universities around the country.
When not leading her own small groups, she is in demand as a sideman, having performed with a wide variety of artists including Kenny Wheeler, Tim Ries, Frank Morgn, Tom Harrell, John Clayton, Ingrid Jensen and Steve Turre. She was also a guest on two installments of Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” on National Public Radio.
Ms. Rowe’s compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by jazz ensembles and orchestras around the world, including the Village Vanguard Orchestra, BBC Jazz Orchestra, U.S. Navy Commodores, Berlin and NDR Radio Jazz Orchestras, London Symphony, DIVA and the Perth Jazz Orchestra. Many of these works can be heard on recordings including “Leave It To DIVA”, “The Perth Jazz Orchestra”, “Bingo” (The Bird of Paradise Orchestra) and “I Believe In You” (DIVA). A recipient of jazz ensemble commissions from the Minnesota Band Directors Association, Illinois Music Educators, Lawrence University’s Fred Sturm Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Education Network, her big band compositions are currently published by Sierra Music Publications, Doug Beach Music and Kendor Music.
Having been selected to conduct the NAfME All-Eastern and All-Northwest Jazz Ensembles as well as All-State jazz ensembles throughout the country, she has also been an invited clinician at the National Association for Music Education Eastern Division Convention, International Society for Jazz Composition and Arranging Symposium and Jazz Education Network conferences. She is on the Board of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers and also serves as the Coordinator for the JEN Sisters In Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition. Other activities include serving as an adjudicator and mentor for the JEN Young Composers Showcase, adjudicating the 2019 Kimmel Center Jazz Residencies and Lincoln Center Ertegun Hall of Fame. She also serves on the faculty of the NJPAC All-Female Jazz Residency in Newark, NJ. In 2017 she was named a UCROSS Composer Fellow and awarded a residency at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Have questions?
Contact Ellen
at
[email protected].
SIJ Associate Coordinator
DR. COLLEEN CLARK
Founder and Artistic Director of the University of South Carolina’s Jazz Girls Day, Dr. Colleen Clark is an Assistant Professor of Jazz at the University of South Carolina where she teaches her drumset studio, jazz history and research courses, coordinates and coaches small ensembles, and conducts Swing Shift Big Band.
Clark can be heard playing on Michael Dease’s “The Other Shoe: The Music of Gregg Hill” (Origin), Allegra Levy’s “Lose My Number: The Music of John McNeil” (SteepleChase), and upcoming releases by Michael Dease and Matt White. Clark was invited by the ASCAP Foundation to lead her band, the Colleen Clark Collective, at the Kennedy Center. Her latest project, “CC + The Adelitas” performed to a packed house at the 2023 Jazz Education Network Conference and will be recording their debut album with 2x GRAMMY Award winning drummer and producer, Quentin E. Baxter serving as co-producer.
Clark is author of the frequently accessed (3,000+) dissertation: “The Evolution of the Ride Cymbal Pattern from 1917 to 1941: An Historical and Critical Analysis.” Dr. Clark is the only woman and drummer to earn a doctoral degree in jazz from the University of North Texas. Clark endorses: Zildjian, Vic Firth and Mono.
