Heather Ward will play original tunes and jazz arrangements of tunes from unexpected genres.
Seattle Jazz Composers Alliance features: Kate Olson, Michael Owcharuk, Nate Omdal, Kyle Doran.

Canadian-born but Seattle-based since 1997, jazz vocalist Heather Ward is an accomplished interpreter of the great American songbook, but also composes and loves to translate music from varied genres into jazz. She released her first solo album, ‘Honeysweet’ in 2024, and her second album ‘Gilded & Silver’ this summer. She has performed in various Vancouver and Seattle venues, Vancouver’s International Jazz Festivals, Seattle’s Cabaret Festivals, sang with the Dickens Carolers for 19 years, and teaches private voice lessons (member of NATS).

Kate Olson is an improvising saxophonist and music educator based in Seattle, WA. Since moving to Seattle in 2010, she has done her best to infiltrate the local, regional and international improvised music scenes. She can be heard performing with her own projects KO SOLO and KO ENSEMBLE, and as a collaborator with the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble and Electric Circus (led by Wayne Horvitz), Birch Pereira and the Gin Joints, Battlestar Kalakala (formerly West Seattle Soul/the Pulsations), and with such Seattle staples as cabaret producers Can Can Presents and Verlaine & McCann. Kate has a BA in Music (Jazz Emphasis) from the University of Wyoming and an MM in Improvisation from the University of Michigan, and is currently on the jazz faculty at Pacific Lutheran University and University of Puget Sound.