Champagne Jazz Brunch Featuring Karrin Allyson at The Ridgefield Playhouse on May 17

Luxurious Sunday brunch, edgy art and jazz singer Karrin Allyson at The Ridgefield Playhouse on May 17

                           Sunday brunch is a luxurious counterpoint to the weekday breakfasts gobbled up on one’s lap while driving, or half-chewed while tweeting. How civilized to savor brunch and the delicious sounds of jazz that energizes the meal and the spirit.

On Sunday, May 17, at 1 p.m. at The Ridgefield Playhouse, brunch will be served by Bareburger offering a sampling of their spring menu, including Avocado Toast with Cherry Tomato & Duck Bacon and Wild Boar Bread Pudding, paired with a champagne tasting courtesy of No. 109 Cheese & Wine. The main event starts at 2 p.m. in the theater with acclaimed jazz singer Karrin Allyson and her quartet.

Four-time Grammy nominee Karrin Allyson has spent the last fifteen years carving out an impressive career as a singer, songwriter, pianist, composer and bandleader.  Her music is drawn from a variety of genres including bossa nova, blues, bebop, samba, jazz and pop standards plus The Great American Songbook, soft rock, and folk rock. Four of Allyson's albums -- Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane, Footprints, Imagina: Songs of Brasil, and 'Round Midnight  -- have received Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Vocal Album.  An exhibit of the edgy and fresh work of up-and-coming artist Megan Marden of Danbury, CT will adorn the lobby, courtesy of Watershed Gallery, Ridgefield. This event is part of the No. 109 Cheese & Wine “Art, Wine and Jazz” Series with media sponsor WZBG 97.3fm.

                           The jazz musicians joining Karrin Allyson on vocals and piano are Ed Howard on bass, Adam Cruz on drums and Bob Mann on guitar. Allyson tours extensively, both in the United States and internationally.She sings in English, French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish and has recorded vocal performances of several instrumental jazz compositions, using both scat and vocalese techniques.  

                         Artist Megan Marden of Danbury, CT received her M.F.A. in painting at Western Connecticut State University and maintains studio space in Danbury. “In the past year, my focus has been on the creation of diminutive paintings of the small spaces in which I both live and work.  Small paintings contain their own admissions about the enormity of painting… I labor over such decisions with the ultimate goal of conveying aspects of the space that are not contained by the purely visual…I want to discover in painting a character beyond the visual,” explains Marden.