Sullivan Fortner, jazz piano Union College

Sunday, December 20, 2026 - 7:00 PM

We kick off a new tradition of jazz during the holidays! Winner of DownBeat Magazine’s 2024 Critics Poll, Fortner is a 2026 Grammy-winning pianist and former regular member of trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s quintet. He plays a solo program of jazz standards and original compositions infused with his New Orleans roots, with selections from his album Solo Game.

Sponsored by an Anonymous Donor.

Runtime: 70 minutes, no intermission.

Union College
Memorial Chapel
Schenectady, NY

General admission seating. Doors open 45 minutes before the concert. All kids and college students are admitted free at the door.

For more than a decade, Sullivan Fortner has been stretching his deep-rooted talents as a pianist, composer, bandleader and uncompromising individualist. The Grammy-winning artist and recipient of the 2026 Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Award has earned international praise as a leader and collaborator. He won the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance for Samara Joy’s “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me” and the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album with Cécile McLorin Salvant for The Window, on which he performed and served as producer. Fortner has also received Grammy nominations for his 2023 release Solo Game and his arrangement of “Optimistic Voices/No Love Dying” from Salvant’s 2022 release Ghost Song.

As a solo leader, he has released Aria (2015), Moments Preserved (2018), Solo Game (2024) and Southern Nights (2025). His collaborators have included Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Diane Reeves, Etienne Charles, John Scofield and the late Roy Hargrove.

Fortner began playing piano at age 7 in New Orleans. He earned a Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music. He has taught and offered masterclasses at several institutions, including Oberlin Conservatory, where he held a faculty position and later returned as a visiting professor of jazz piano.