ABOUT DEANNA WITKOWSKI

Known for her adventurous, engaging music that heals the soul, pianist-composer-vocalist Deanna Witkowski moves with remarkable ease between Brazilian, jazz, classical, and sacred music. The award-winning bandleader and Mary Lou Williams scholar is celebrating two new releases: her seventh recording, Force of Nature (MCG Jazz, October 2021), featuring all-Williams compositions; and Mary Lou Williams: Music For The Soul (Liturgical Press, September 2021), her new Williams biography. The two projects cap a twenty-year deep dive into the ground-breaking impact of Williams’ life and music, making Witkowski one of the few living authorities on the iconic pianist. As a sought after Williams expert, she has presented at the Kennedy Center, Duke University, Fordham University, and performed Williams’ compositions as a featured guest with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Witkowski’s explosive performances combine virtuosity and heart, telling stories that reveal her innate curiosity of the human condition. She has recorded with Grammy nominees John Patitucci, Kate McGarry, and Donny McCaslin, and has performed and toured with renowned vocalists Lizz Wright, Nnenna Freelon, Erin Bode, Filó Machado, and Vanessa Rubin. A frequent winner of composition competitions for her concert and sacred choral pieces, Witkowski has received funding for new work from the Choral Arts Initiative PREMIERE|Project Festival and from the New York State Council on the Arts for her forthcoming Afro-Brazilian project, the Nossa Senhora Suite. Witkowski is a second-year doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh. Experience her work at deannajazz.com.