MoCA\CT Presents: Dee Dee Bridgewater & Bill Charlap
Date: Saturday, January 30, 2027 · 7:00 PM
VIP: $120 · includes the pre-concert VIP reception and premium reserved table seating
General Admission: $85
Senior: $65
MoCA\CT Members receive a 10% discount on tickets.
VIP reception 6:00 PM · Concert 7:00 PM · MoCA\CT, 19 Newtown Turnpike, Westport, CT
Two living legends. One piano. One unforgettable voice.
Some pairings are simply historic. When three-time Grammy winner, Tony Award–winning Broadway star, and NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater sits down with Grammy-winning pianist Bill Charlap, four decades of jazz mastery distill into the most intimate format the music offers: a single voice, a single piano. In the close quarters of MoCA\CT’s galleries, you won’t merely watch their rapport — you’ll feel the telepathy between two artists who finish each other’s phrases.
Bridgewater’s fearless artistry has carried her from the Broadway stage to the world’s great concert halls and a Kennedy Center NEA Jazz Masters honor; Charlap earned his Grammy for The Silver Lining, his radiant album of Jerome Kern songs with Tony Bennett, and is revered as one of the most lyrical interpreters of the American Songbook alive. Together they tour behind Elemental — their first duo album and a 2026 Grammy nominee for Best Jazz Vocal Album — reimagining standards with the playful, soul-deep conversation that comes only from total command of the tradition. An evening of pure craft, stripped to its essentials.
THE VIP EXPERIENCE
Arrive at 6:00 PM for an exclusive pre-concert reception in Gallery A — a private hour among the contemporary art with complimentary wine, a craft cocktail, and a selection of artisanal hors d’oeuvres. Then settle in for the performance at your own reserved, lamplit bistro table. Wine, food, and the best seats in the house — the concert at its most luxurious.
ABOUT DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER
Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radio’s syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
In 1974, her first solo album, entitled Afro Blue, appeared, and she performed on Broadway in the musical The Wiz. For her role as Glinda the Good Witch she won a Tony Award in 1975 as “Best Featured Actress”, and the musical also won the 1976 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. She subsequently appeared in several other stage productions. After touring France in 1984 with the musical Sophisticated Ladies, she moved to Paris in 1986. The same year saw her in Lady Day, as Billie Holiday, for which role she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award, as well as recording the song “Precious Thing” with Ray Charles, featured on her album Victim of Love.
In April 2017, Bridgewater was the recipient of an NEA Jazz Masters Award with honors bestowed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in 2018 was awarded the 2018 Maria Fisher Founder’s Award by the Thelonious Monk/Hancock Institute of Jazz. Bridgewater was also, in November 2019, inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. As a Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Bridgewater continues to appeal for international solidarity to finance global grassroots projects in the fight against world hunger. She has also been given honorary doctorates from the University of Michigan and the Berklee College of Music.
ABOUT BILL CHARLAP
Born in New York City, Bill Charlap is the son of American Broadway composer Moose Charlap and the singer Sandy Stewart. Stewart was a regular on Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall television series and had a hit recording in 1962 with “My Coloring Book”. Charlap is a distant cousin of the jazz pianist Dick Hyman. Early in Charlap’s career, he was a member of Gerry Mulligan’s band, first recording with it in 1989. He has also worked with Benny Carter, Tony Bennett, Phil Woods, Scott Hamilton, Ron Carter, and others. In 1993, he released his first album under his own name, Along With Me.
In the mid-1990s, he was the musical director of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, A Celebration of Johnny Mercer, part of New York’s JVC Jazz Festival. In 1995, he joined the Phil Woods Quintet. In 1997, Charlap first recorded with a trio that included the unrelated musicians Peter Washington (double bass) and Kenny Washington (drums). This trio continued to record and perform live through the 2020s. Charlap has been nominated for multiple instrumental Grammy Awards. Somewhere was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Album at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards. Live At The Village Vanguard was nominated in the same category at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, and Uptown, Downtown at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.
In 2008, Charlap became part of The Blue Note 7, a septet formed that year in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records. The group recorded an album in 2008, Mosaic, which was released in 2009 on Blue Note/EMI, and toured the United States in promotion of the album from January to April 2009. The group plays the music of Blue Note Records from various artists, with arrangements by members of the band and his wife Renee Rosnes.
He currently serves as the Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.
ABOUT MoCA\CT PRESENTS
MoCA\CT Presents is the flagship concert series of the Museum of Contemporary Art Connecticut (MoCA\CT) — bringing Grammy and Emmy winners and internationally acclaimed artists to perform within our contemporary art galleries, here in Fairfield County. It is rare for a town the size of Westport to host artists of this caliber, and rarer still to experience them this close: the kind of evening you would expect in Manhattan, offered minutes from home. World-class artistry, intimately staged — Fairfield County’s premier destination for contemporary art and live performance.
Refund & Weather Policy
Tickets are transferable to another concert of your choice or other individuals. If a concert is cancelled due to weather conditions, tickets will be valid for the rescheduled date. Please consider the price of unused tickets as a donation. No refunds will be issued.