Canadian pianist and composer Renee Rosnes has earned major international acclaim since she first relocated from Vancouver to New York City in 1986. Having toured and recorded with many of the world's greatest musicians, her resume reads like a who's who of jazz. She spent many years touring and recording in the groups of Joe Henderson, JJ Johnson, Wayne Shorter, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, James Moody, and Bobby Hutcherson, among others. As a leader, Renee has released a series of nine recordings on the Blue Note label, which have collectively garnered four Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy. She is also a founding member of the San Francisco Jazz Collective, an all-star octet that has featured such artists as Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton, Joe Lovano and Bobby Hutcherson. Renee has appeared at major jazz festivals all over the world, and frequently performs at New York's Village Vanguard and Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center. She was recently featured at Carnegie Hall in a tribute concert for fellow Canadian and jazz master Oscar Peterson.

For more than a decade, pianist Bill Charlap has been forging a solo career characterized by hard-swinging brio, eloquence and a rigor-meets-romance musical sensibility. With his fine long-term working trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, he has released four superb albums for Blue Note Records—CDs celebrating the American songbook tradition, the songs of Hoagy Carmichael, Leonard Bernstein, and George Gershwin. New York-born and bred, Charlap says he can't recall a time when he wasn't playing a piano. The son of two accomplished artists, he grew up immersed in a household of song. "My relationship with music occurred naturally," says Charlap, whose father was Broadway composer and songwriter Moose Charlap, and mother, cabaret/pop singer Sandy Stewart. Charlap says that his mother's singing has influenced him: "Her phrasing influences the way I play melody. In many ways I approach the song from a singer's perspective, music and lyrics are of equal importance." Mother and son often perform together, most notably at the Algonquin in New York. Bill has worked with many great jazz musicians including Phil Woods, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Carter, Clark Terry, Jim Hall, Frank Wess, Wynton Marsalis, and Tony Bennett. Just last summer Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes became husband and wife.