Make Jazz Trill Again
Experience jazz as a communal language of trust-building, intergenerational connection, and collective artmaking.
Program Overview
For the 2026–2027 academic year, the Center for the Arts welcomes Make Jazz Trill Again as our partner in developing a series of performances, workshops, and outside-the-box curriculum to explore jazz as a communal language of trust-building across differences—a genre rooted in Black culture and a civic project of fostering relationships across generations and discovering new ways to be in resonance with each other.
Make Jazz Trill Again is a cultural movement. Started by jazz artist Melanie Charles in 2016, it was initiated as a modest hashtag intended to reinvigorate the independent jazz scene in the digital age, but has since grown into a vibrant network of projects that include producing and curating performances, festivals, and jam sessions, collaborative music-making experiences, workshops, and a widely-followed podcast series that centers on artist empowerment and community connection. The roots of the project trace back to Charles’ experience as a student at The New School in New York, where she initiated the institution’s first “Gender and Jazz” workshops, challenging traditional instrumentation, incorporating emerging technologies into performance, and presenting jazz in unconventional venues to expand access and reach broader audiences. Today, the Make Jazz Trill Again team also includes producer and musician Yunie Mojica and documentary filmmaker and producer Darah Golub.
With Make Jazz Trill Again, the Center for the Arts will spend the year centering collective process as an essential element in artmaking. We welcome their organization as a way to decenter the individualism that burdens art-making today. Wesleyan's campus has always been a space for convening, communing, reuniting, and gathering as an essential component of learning and growing collectively. Make Jazz Trill Again broadens the aperture of what artistic process can look like and exemplifies the bridging of many practices required to create interdisciplinary works and spaces of belonging.
Throughout the year, Make Jazz Trill Again will present and develop new work through three campus engagements, each anchored by a public “town hall” that invites open discussion and exploration of themes related to the residency, amplifying the lessons jazz can teach us—about process, creative practice, and collaboration—that are applicable well beyond the limits of the music field.
Upcoming Events
Artist Profiles
Melanie Charles (Founder) stands out as one of the few artists whose sound captures the sentiments of a generation. Raised by a Haitian mother in Brooklyn, her upbringing shaped her dynamic engagement with various forms of Black American music, from jazz to soul to experimental genres, giving an eclectic edge to her sound. At LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, she honed her skills in flute and vocals before furthering her studies at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Embraced by a diverse array of artists from Wynton Marsalis to SZA, Charles’ genre-bending style captivates audiences. Notable appearances include NPR Music’s “Tiny Desk Concert” in 2021, solidifying her reputation as a formidable vocalist, flutist, arranger, producer, and band leader. In 2022, she contributed to Terri Lyne Carrington's GRAMMY Award-winning album "New Standards;" and collaborated on "Hotel San Claudio" with Mark De Clive-Lowe and Shigeto, which led to a run of successful Jazz Is Dead shows curated by Adrienne Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Committed to nurturing emerging talent, Charles mentors aspiring singers at the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, where her own journey began. And she sits on the board of the House Foundation for the Arts, the organization of her mentor, artist Meredith Monk. Charles’ most recent album, "Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women," released in 2021 under Verve/Universal, showcases her versatility, creativity, and dedication to community. Through it all, Charles has remained committed to making music that pushes listeners to consider new possibilities—sonically and politically.
Yunie Mojica (Co-Host and Producer) is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer with 15 years experience working and performing in the performing arts industry. Formerly a programming concert manager at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Harlem Stage, she is currently the Programming and Partnerships Manager at City Parks Foundation, SummerStage, and Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. Skilled as an arts presenter and in concert production, event management, and music education, Mojica has a strong arts and music professional background holding a Bachelor of Arts in Music Management and Jazz Studies from University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music and Jackie McLean Institute.
Darah Golub (Producer and Documentarian) is a New York-based artist and creative executive currently serving as President of the nonprofit multimedia network JBS. She has a BA from Boston University and studied vocal performance at The New School for Jazz where she met Melanie Charles and initiated “The New York Love Songs” documentary project in 2007. Golub recorded and toured internationally as part of the band Parlour Tricks (The Village Voice’s #1 Pop Band in New York City in 2014); and co-hosted Billboard’s “Soul Sisters” podcast, interviewing over 100 female artists including Brandy, Lisa Loeb, Kelly Rowland, and Rickie Lee Jones. Golub’s first short film, “Slow Burn and The Muse,” premiered in festivals in 2021.