Charlotte Blake Alston is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, narrator, instrumentalist, librettist and singer who has performed in venues throughout North America and abroad for over 30 years. She is committed to the preservation of African and African American oral storytelling traditions. Her stories include folktales, historical stories and songs that highlight the richness of those traditions.  Her presentation style is engaging and often participatory. She sometimes incorporates traditional instruments such as thumb piano, djembe, or the 21-string kora. Her wide range of talents includes collaborations with other arts institutions. The 2021-2022 season marks her 30^th consecutive season serving as host and narrator on family concerts for The Philadelphia Orchestra, and 28^th as Host of sound All Around, the orchestra’s preschool concert series. Charlotte hosted family and school concerts at Carnegie Hall for 19 years and has performed for Lincoln Center Institute and the Juilliard School digital learning platform. She has appeared in such venues as the Smithsonian Institution, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Storytelling Festival and the National Festival of Black Storytelling.

Diane Monroe is a violinist whose versatility and expressive artistry consistently bring both jazz and classical audiences to their feet. Her visibility as a jazz artist began with her long-standing membership as first violinist of the Uptown String Quartet and the Max Roach Double Quartet. Her original compositions and arrangements are highlighted on TV shows, on recordings, and in performances with the two ensembles in major concert halls and festivals throughout the world. In 2018, she won both a Pew Fellowship, and a Pew Project grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. The Pew Project grant funded her 2019 project, Violin Woman, African Dreams. Concurrently, Vibes, and her orchestration of Fred Rogers’ You Are Special, appears on the Sony Classical Records soundtrack recording for the film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”.