Charenee Wade is an award-winning singer, arranger, educator and composer from New York City. She has excited audiences all over the world with her ingenuity, vibrancy and vocal dexterity.
In a November 1, 2024 Gigwise article, 27 Female Jazz Singers of the 2000s, writer Emma Richardson named Charenee one of the standout contemporary female jazz vocalists who have made their mark in the new millennium.
A vocalist on the current Urban Bush Women tour, Charenee is also heading to the studio to put the final touches on her next release of original music, completing an Anita Baker/Roberta Flack project, and gathering her band to hit the road and perform.
Ms. Wade has worked with notable artists including Wynton Marsalis, Terri Lyne Carrington, Christian McBride, Winard Harper, Eric Reed, Jacky Terrason, Curtis Lundy, Robert Glasper, and MacArthur Genius Awardee, Kyle Abraham.
She has performed at top venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Jazz Standard and The Apollo. She has appeared at major festivals worldwide including Montreux, the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Spoleto, Savannah Music, Jazz En Tete, Bern Jazz Festival, and Charlie Parker Jazz Festival.
Wade is one of the most exciting, distinctive and bold young musical talents on the rise today. A native of Brooklyn, she began singing at age 12 and fell under the spell of Sarah Vaughan. Wade attended LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and earned her music degree from Manhattan School of Music.
One of four artists selected for the Dianne Reeves Young Artist workshop at Carnegie Hall, she was first runner-up at the 2006 New York City Jazzmobile Vocal Competition.
A recipient of the 2017 Jazz at Lincoln Center Millennial Swing Award, her critically acclaimed CD, Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, is a powerful re-interpretation of the poet’s musical library. Charenee released her first CD, Love Walked In, in 2011.
As an educator, Wade teaches masterclasses, clinics and jazz camps in the U.S. and all over the world. Charenee is currently an instructor at the Aaron Copland School, Peabody Institute of John Hopkins University, and The Juilliard School.