deanna@deannajazz.com
Oak Park, Illinois
Known for her adventurous, engaging music that heals the soul, pianist, composer, and scholar Deanna Witkowski moves with remarkable ease between Brazilian, jazz, classical, and sacred music. Her first book, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul (Liturgical Press), is the winner of the 2022 ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award and the 2022 Jazz Journalists Association Award for Biography of the Year. Her seventh recording as a bandleader, Force of Nature (MCG Jazz), reached number five on the JazzWeek nationwide radio chart and remained in the top ten most played albums on jazz radio for more than ten weeks. As a sought-after Williams expert, she has taught for Jazz at Lincoln Center, presented at the Kennedy Center, Loyola University Chicago, and Fordham University, and performed Williams’
compositions as a featured guest with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, Witkowski completed her PhD in jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh and is currently writing her second book based on her doctoral dissertation, “Jazz in the Pews: ‘Experiments in Sunday Worship’ in the 1960s.”
Dedicated to bringing communities together through jazz, Witkowski has worked as a guest music leader in over one hundred churches across the United States. Her weekly video series, “Off the Page: Sacred Jazz,” shares practical resources for church musicians and her jazz hymn arrangements have been purchased by over 500 churches.
Witkowski is the new professor of jazz piano at Elmhurst University outside of
Chicago. Experience her work at deannajazz.com.
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The Blue Note Era: Joe Henderson and Kenny Dorham
Thursday, January 9, 2025
9:00 AM - 9:50 AM EST
Jazz in the Pews: Experiments in Sunday Worship in the 1960s
Thursday, January 9, 2025
1:00 PM - 1:25 PM EST
