At the heart of every great performance at The Soraya is a great artist. Some appear on the stage, and some are composers, choreographers, or others who act as inspiration across generations and geography. Please meet some of those creative powerhouses who elevate the 2025-26 Season.
The concert harp delivered to the Long Island home of John and Alice Coltrane was a gift from the saxophone master to his wife just before his death at the age of 40, in 1967. A grieving Alice, who was already a top-notch jazz pianist (she’d been playing in John’s quartet), found the soundscape of a lifelong spiritual practice in the instrument’s celestial strumming.
Alice (McLeod) Coltrane (1937-2007) grew up steeped in the music of Detroit’s Mount Olive Baptist Church. A young woman with pianistic chops to play bebop, met her husband while gigging on the circuit.
Both Coltranes meditated, and they introduced Eastern religious rites and musical forms to their playing. Stretching the limits of more conventional jazz, Alice, like Trane, forayed into free-floating modal sound. Her elegiac, meditative keyboard ruminations and her cascading glissandos on harp brought otherworldly power to her discography, notably, in her seminal album, Journey in Satchidananda (1971).
Alice inherited Trane’s mythic aura for his fans and the jazz community after his death. She wore it well. Alice’s spiritual quest deepened and led to her founding of Sai Anantam Ashram in Agoura Hills, north of Los Angeles, and her rebirth as Swamini Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
Alonzo King LINES Ballet
Ode to Alice Coltrane
Sat Feb 21 | 8PM
Alonzo King is one of America’s most decorated choreographers, and his San Francisco-based company has stood at the forefront of bold work both on the West Coast and in their global touring for more than four decades. King has been captivated by jazz legend Alice Coltrane for much of his life, and his 2024 creation to her music is not his first. For this recent piece, he chose Coltrane’s 1971 album, Journey in Satchidananda. King was drawn to Coltrane for the marrying of East and West in her music, teachings, and life, something that resonates with King in his own work.
2025–26 SEASON JUST ANNOUNCED
The spotlight’s on our boldest season yet! From a reimagined Fiddler on the Roof, to a star-studded Tribute to Quincy Jones, and the electrifying return of Veronica Swift with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, the stage is set for unforgettable moments.