Lisa Fischer

It’s the latest venturesome encounter for Lisa Fischer, who has emerged over the past decade as one of the most powerful vocalists in the world. The Brooklyn native was already a highly sought-after background singer when she scored a chart-topping R&B hit, “How Can I Ease the Pain,” and a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance with her 1991 debut album So Intense. Ultimately she decided to focus on her thriving career touring the world’s biggest acts, including the Rolling Stones, Luther Vandross, Sting, and Tina Turner. But in the wake of the Academy Award-winning 2013 documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, which gave prominent play to her essential vocal work, she decided to take the reins of her own career. She and Taylor Eigsti, the Grammy Award-winning pianist (who's performed at the festival with vocalist Gretchen Parlato and Sonoma County-bred guitar star Julian Lage), have been working together since 2018 as a duo. The initial concept involved developing a repertoire of hit song that she sang on, creating settings that allowed plenty of space for improvisational interplay and extended detours. She’s also become an essential muse to San Francisco choreographer Alonzo King, creating scores for and performing on stage with his LINES Ballet company numerous times over the past five years, including recent performances at the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. For this performance with Adji Cissoko and Shuaib Elhassan, two sensational dancers who both joined LINES in 2014, Fischer is drawing partly on the score she created for King’s “Deep River” with pianist Jason Moran among others. For New York-raised Elhassan and German-Senegalese Cissoko, who have been encouraged by King to stretch their improvisational wings, it’s an opportunity to respond directly to the music-making in real time with musicians who live in the moment.