Johnaye

JOHNAYE KENDRICK began studying music at age 6. After 5 years of private piano, pestering the school music teacher, and pleading with her mother to study violin, she finally got her wish when the music teacher arrived at the Kendrick home with violin and instrumental rental contract in hand. After a few years of group string lessons, Johnaye auditioned for a scholarship to study privately. She won a place in the studio of the then President of the San Diego Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.

In her 10th grade year she entered the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts where she focused on violin. During that year her friend Simon Kafka gave her a cassette tape of Sarah Vaughan's album "After Hours." She was smitten. Over the next two years she sang in the school's vocal jazz ensembles while continuing to play violin in the All-City Honor Orchestra and The San Diego Youth Symphony.

When she discovered that she could actually go to college and study jazz, she auditioned and was accepted to the California Institute of the Arts, USC School of Music and the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. The decision was easy. She packed her violin and moved to Chicago.

For two years she was a student in the Jazz Studies Program at Roosevelt and worked with Jennifer Shelton, Michael Molloy, Scott Mason and Patricia Barber. She sang in the Roosevelt Vocal Jazz Ensemble, The Honors Combo and was the featured vocalist for the Jazz Orchestra.

In 2002, the Roosevelt Vocal Jazz Ensemble, New Deal, traveled to Western Michigan University to participate in the Steve Zegree Vocal Jazz Invitational Festival. By this time she had become acquainted with a number of WMU graduates who were successful performing artists in the Chicago area. Their influence played a large roll in her decision to finish her Jazz Studies degree at Western.

Since her arrival she has been a member of Gold Company and The Gold Company Sextet. She has won a Down Beat Award as an Outstanding Jazz Vocalist and in April was the featured vocalist for the Intercollegiate Jazz Orchestra at the Midwestern Conference of the International Association for Jazz Education. Johnaye has also had the pleasure to perform duo with WMU visiting artist Fred Hersch as part of an honors duo recital. In June she was a featured soloist in a composition by the legendary jazz bassist Rufus Reid at the International String Bass Conference held this year on the Western Michigan University campus. The project featured an hour's worth of through-composed, somewhat atonal music with improvised solos, the object of which was to feature non-traditional instruments in unorthodox ways.

Not only is Johnaye an accomplished singer and violinist, she has considerable writing skills. She has already written the music and lyrics for over 20 compositions, several of which she has performed in venues across the country including gigs in Muskegon, South Haven, Grand Rapids, San Diego, Chicago, Los Angeles, Louisville, New York, Paris and Kalamazoo! Before the end of the year she will relocate to Paris, France to continue her musical endeavors.