Charenee

Inspired by Sarah Vaughn, Brooklyn native Charenee Wade began singing jazz at the age of 12. She recently completed her master’s degree at Manhattan School of Music. She has received various scholarships, including the ASCAP Foundation Award and Scholarship and the International Women in Jazz’s Youth in Jazz Award. She has studied with Miles Griffith, Bob Stewart, Lenora Zenzailai Helm, Pamela Baskin-Watson, Carmen Lundy, and is currently studying with Peter Eldridge, Luciana Souza, and Cecil Bridgewater. She has performed at Festival du Riou, the Montreaux Jazz Festival, and the Ascona New Orleans Jazz Festival, and opened for Herbie Hancock at the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in 2003. She performed the Rufus Reid work Linear Surroundings with the bassist-composer in 2004. She recently returned from Russia on tour with the Oleg Butman Trio at various venues such as Le Club in Moscow, and the Province Jazz Festival in Orenburg.At Manhattan School of Music, Charenee has been featured with the conservatory’s 100-piece orchestra Jazz Philharmonia and other large ensembles. She was accepted into Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Program and performed her original music at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; she returned to the Kennedy Center for the 2004 Thelonious Monk Competition, where she placed fourth in the finals. She most recently was 1st Runner-Up in the Jazzmobile Vocal Competition.Charenee has performed at various venues including the Jazz Gallery and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola with her own band as well as the E. J. Strickland Project and Sherisse Roger’s Project Uprising. She appears regularly at The Zinc Bar and at various venues in the tri-state area