Ted Nash enjoys an extraordinary career as a performer, conductor, composer, arranger, and educator. Born in Los Angeles into a musical family (his father, Dick Nash, and uncle, the late Ted Nash, were both well-known jazz and studio musicians), Nash blossomed early, a “young lion” before the term became marketing vernacular. Nash has that uncanny ability to mix freedom with accessibility, blues with intellect, and risk-taking with clarity. His group Odeon has often been cited as a creative focus of jazz. Many of Nash’s recordings have received critical acclaim and have appeared on the “best-of” lists in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, and The Boston Globe. His recordings, The Mancini Project and Sidewalk Meeting, have been placed on several “best-of- decade” lists. His album Portrait in Seven Shades was recorded by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and was released in 2010. The album is the first composition released by the JLCO featuring original music by a band member other than bandleader Wynton Marsalis. Nash’s latest album, Chakra, was released in 2013. His most recent big band recording, Presidential Suite: Eight Variations on Freedom, won the 2017 Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album Grammy Award. The album includes “Spoken at Midnight,” which won the 2017 Best Instrumental Composition Grammy Award. Nash’s arrangement of “We Three Kings,” featured on the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis’ Big Band Holidays album, was nominated for the 2017 Best Instrumental Or A Cappella Arrangement Grammy Award.