Sullivan has won the competition on Showtime at the Apollo Theatre several times. She has performed with artists including Wynton Marsalis, Stefon Harris, and Philip Harper; studied with such artists as Billy Taylor and Ron Carter; and played in groups such as the Rachel Z Trio. Sullivan appeared in the Kennedy Center's 1997 and 1999 Women in Jazz Festival.
Sullivan, born in 1972 in the Bronx, began her career as a musician at the age of 12, studying dance, guitar, art and drums at the Harlem School of Arts. At the age of 17, she began studying the acoustic bass at the La Guardia Fiorello School of Music and Arts, and continued her studies in the Manhattan School of Music where she graduated and her received her bachelors of music.
Currently Miriam has been exploring new territory as a composer and a vocalist, with soulful, funky, world sounds. Her unplugged project has appeared at the Jazz Gallery, the Kitano, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Kennedy Center Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. Sullivan puts down “plush, rhythmically driving bass lines," croons the Chicago Tribune. In 2003, Miriam Sullivan was selected for the Kennedy Center-Department of State Jazz Ambassadors' international program of cultural exchange, representing the U.S. abroad in official diplomatic goodwill tours.
The Puffin Cultural Forum is a project of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd and hopes through the arts to encourage dialog about issues important to the community. The Forum is located at 20 East Oakdene Avenue in Teaneck, NJ right off of Teaneck Road. For directions, upcoming events, or other information about the Puffin Cultural Forum please consult the Puffin Cultural Forum section of the Foundation's website at www.puffinfoundation.org or call us at 201-836-8923.
This and all other Puffin Cultural Forum events and programs are underwritten by the Puffin Foundation, Ltd. in an effort to make it possible for anyone to attend.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
