About me
New York Voices was born in the mid-1980s at upstate New York’s Ithaca College. Peter Eldridge, an aspiring jazz pianist who came late to singing; Kim Nazarian, who dreamed of a life on Broadway; and Darmon Meader, a saxophonist and self-described “choral geek,” came together in the school’s vocal jazz ensemble. Director Dave Reilly included all three of them, as well as Caprice Fox, in an ensemble he’d been invited to bring on a tour of European jazz festivals. “It seemed to go over so well that Darmon and I decided to keep it going, try to make something happen professionally,” Eldridge recalls. “Kim and Caprice were part of that original band, and we slowly but surely made the transition to New York City in 1988.” Lauren Kinhan joined the group in 1991 when Eldridge had what was intended as a oneoff songwriting session with her; impressed with her soprano vocal, he suggested she audition. “We’d heard maybe 70 auditions and hadn’t found the right fit,” says Eldridge. “Lauren came in and sang ‘God Bless the Child’ for us, and I remember looking at Darmon and going, ‘Oh. Okay.’”
With the dawn of the 21st century, NYV increased its currency in the jazz world via collaborations with
institutions such as the Count Basie Orchestra, Paquito d’Rivera, and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big
Band. They also launched a jazz education initiative, inaugurating its Vocal Jazz Camp for aspiring jazz
singers in 2008. (A European version of the Camp began in 2017). Each of its members has also
established a career as an educator: Eldridge is a voice professor at Berklee College of Music; Nazarian
vocal jazz instructor at Ithaca College and artist-in-residence at both Bowling Green State University and
Tri-C Community College in Cleveland; Kinhan is an adjunct faculty member at the New School; and
Meader is an artist-in-residence at Indiana University.
