Esperanza Spalding: Emily's D+ Evolution

Making her Australian debut a decade into her career, the multiple Grammy-winning jazz prodigy stages an ambitious art-pop performance rekindling her childhood interest in theatre, poetry and movement and delving into a broader concept of performance. Originally conceived the day before her birthday, during a 'sleepless night of full moon inspiration', Emily's D+Evolution will be featuring all new material at Vivid LIVE that Esperanza says 'unfolds as live musical vignettes.'

 

A voracious and magnetic performer, Spalding is attentively studious towards what the process of playing live presents to the structure of a song – whether sharing a stage with her own revolving ensembles or playing with Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monae or Prince. Her channeled energy runs through seven collaborative and five solo albums. The most recent, Emily’s D+Evolution, is a fresh artistic vision – a daring tapestry of music, vibrant imagery, performance art and stage design. Co-produced by Spalding and Tony Visconti (David Bowie), the album is an electrifying take on the power trio, adorned with rich vocal arrangements and touches of synthesizer.

 

As a four-time Grammy Award winner, Esperanza Spalding has, in the past decade of her illustrious career performed at the Oscars, the Nobel Prize ceremony, and several times at the White House. She continually and brilliantly marries genres, pushes boundaries, and creates groundbreaking work. By anyone’s measure, Spalding’s accomplishments at 31 years of age have already eclipsed those of artists half a century older, yet it’s clear that her artistic journey is a lifelong one we’ve just begun to collectively comprehend.

 

Now returning with Emily's D+Evolution, Esperanza Spalding finally arrives in electric form with her groundbreaking new project and persona at Vivid LIVE.