The exceptional jazz vocalist Kurt Elling comes to Baldwin Auditorium on Valentine’s weekend with selections from his forthcoming album Passion World; commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, this cosmopolitan project features ballads of love and loss from across the globe. The Washington Post offered the intrepid Elling this high praise: “since the mid-90s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic, or interesting. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz.”

Elling has won every DownBeat Critics Poll for Male Vocalist over the last fourteen years and has been named “Male Singer of the Year” by the Jazz Journalists Association eight times in that same span. Every one of Elling’s ten albums has been nominated for a GRAMMY. Elling’s rich baritone spans four octaves providing a vehicle for astonishing technical mastery and emotional depth. His repertoire includes original compositions and modern interpretations of standards, all of which are springboards for inspired improvisation, vocalese, and poetry.