Come on down and swing along with the best ragtime, stride, and jazz musicians in town.

Mary Lou Williams Biographer
Jazz Journalists Award for Biography of the Year (2022)

Known for her adventurous, engaging music that heals the soul, pianist, composer, and author Deanna Witkowski moves with remarkable ease between Brazilian, jazz, classical, and sacred music. Her first book, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, is the winner of the 2022 Jazz Journalists Association Award for Biography of the Year. Her companion recording, Force of Nature, remained in the top ten most-played albums on jazz radio for more than ten weeks in 2022. Earlier this year she taught a six-week course on Mary Lou Williams for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Swing U adult education program. Witkowski is a newly-minted PhD with her degree in jazz studies from the University of Pittsburgh.