The Trailblazing Music of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, & Carly Simon

Ted Sperling has been artistic director of MasterVoices for 10 years and has led performances of more than 40 programs with the group. Highlights include Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark, Stephen Sondheim’s The Frogs, and a new English translation of Bach’s St. John Passion. A Tony Award–winner for The Light in the Piazza, Mr. Sperling has been the music director or director for 11 Broadway and 10 off-Broadway shows. He has conducted major symphony orchestras around the world and is a five-time Grammy Award nominee. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in July 2000. 

Morgan James is a New York–based soul singer, songwriter, and Broadway actress who grew up listening to everyone from Joni Mitchell to Paul Simon to Aretha Franklin. She graduated from the Juilliard School with a classical music degree, after which she began writing and recording her own music.

Ms. James has performed in the original companies of five Broadway productions and cultivated fans with viral YouTube videos. She has released five studio albums and also recorded and released full-album covers of Joni Mitchell’s Blue as well as the Beatles’s White Album to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Her latest album, Nobody’s Fool, is a love letter to ’90s R&B, featuring nine new songs and one cover of Jeff Buckley’s “Everyone Here Wants You.” The album release led to a 60-city US tour with her band. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance.

Capathia Jenkins made her Broadway debut in The Civil War, where she created the role of Harriet Jackson. She then starred in the off-Broadway 2000 revival of Godspell and returned to Broadway in The Look of Love. She also created the roles of The Washing Machine in Caroline, Or Change and Frieda May in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me. In 2007 she went back to off-Broadway and starred in (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. She was also seen in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Most recently, she starred as Medda in the Disney production of Newsies on Broadway.

An active concert artist, Ms. Jenkins has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Memphis Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in July 2018. In 2011 she had the honor of performing in the Broadway Ambassadors to Cuba concert as part of the Festival De Teatro De La Habana.

Ms. Jenkins’s television credits include 30 Rock, The Practice, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and The Sopranos. She can be seen in the 2012 film Musical Chairs and can be heard on the soundtracks of Nine, Chicago, and Legally Blonde 2.

After spending her early years living mainly in Germany as the daughter of an Air Force master sergeant, Shayna Steele spent her teen years in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she honed her musical theater and vocal talent. Her appearance on Star Search with Ed McMahon provided a bigger spotlight, and after leaving college, she found herself in New York, appearing in RENT, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Hairspray. She then moved out on her own, providing background vocals for Bette Midler, Rihanna, and Kelly Clarkson.

After going solo, she released her album RISE in 2015, reaching No. 2 on the iTunes jazz chart, and recently released her fourth studio album, Gold Dust. In film and television, she can be heard on the soundtracks for Hairspray, The Bourne Identity, and Sex and the City 2. She also appeared on The Sopranos, and will appear in the upcoming DC Comics series The Penguin this fall.

In 2023 Ms. Steele debuted her solo symphony show, American Diva, with the Rochester Philharmonic, featuring arrangements of her music and favorite covers. She has also performed with the Dallas Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, among many others, and makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance.