Sullivan Fortner ’08 Wins Second GRAMMY

Sullivan Fortner ’08 took home his second GRAMMY, this time for Best Jazz Performance for his collaboration with Samara Joy, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Me.” In 2019 he received his first GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album: The Window and his collaboration with Cécile McLorin Salvant.

Fortner, a native of New Orleans, showed signs as an Oberlin Conservatory student of becoming an award-winning jazz performer. “Sullivan is one of the most talented students that we have ever seen in the history of our program,” says Professor of Jazz Guitar Bobby Ferrazza, director of Oberlin’s Jazz Studies Division in an Oberlin Conservatory magazine interview. “He has all the necessary tools: relaxed technique, great ears, and great artistic sense and vision. Some folks have more art than craft. Others are the reverse. But Sully has them both, and that’s when there’s magic.”

A highly-sought improviser, Fortner has performed across the country and throughout the world at such cultural institutions as Snug Harbor, New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Lorraine’s and The Jazz Playhouse in New Orleans, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard and Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. He’s appeared at celebrated festivals, including Newport, Monterey, Discover, Tri-C, and Gillmore Keyboard, among others. In 2019, Fortner brought his band to the historic Village Vanguard for a week-long engagement where he will return in April 2025.