Zion Dyson

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Zion Dyson started singing jazz at 13. From ages 13 to 18, Zion studied jazz performance, theory, composition, and history under trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos and vocalist Lorraine Falk, as well as received mentorship from two-time Grammy award winning producer and arranger, Kamau Kenyatta. She has performed at various venues around San Diego, including San Diego Symphony’s Jazz @ the Jacobs and Bayside Summer Nights, the Athenaeum’s La Jolla and The Scripps Research Center locations, The Westgate Hotel, and more than ten times as the featured performer for the Young Lions Series at Panama 66. Zion has performed with several jazz legends including Sheila Jordan, Mike Woffard, Holly Hofmann, Marshall Hawkins, and Gilbert Castellanos.

Zion competed in the Next Generation Jazz Festival from 2016-2019. In 2019, she won first place in the High School Vocal Soloist Category, and her combo from Young Lions Jazz Conservatory, directed by Castellanos, placed 3rd. That same year, she was chosen to be the vocalist of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. With this group, she toured around Washington and Western Canada and performed big band arrangements of standards and an original composition at the 2019 Monterey Jazz Festival. She now attends New England Conservatory on merit-based scholarship, where she studies performance, improvisation, and composition with Ken Schaphorst, Dominique Eade, Frank Carlberg, and many other influential figures in jazz. In 2023, she expects to graduate with a Bachelors of Music in Jazz Performance with a Concentration in Music Education.