Wenonah Brooks

Wenonah Brooks, born and raised in Hopewell, New Jersey has been performing in one way or another since the age of eight (8). Trained in the tradition of gospel music, Wenonah and her five (5) sisters have performed as the group “Brooks Ensemble Plus” in many public forums including the New Hope-Solebury Jazz Festival featuring Philly Joe Jones.

It is a natural transition for an artist with these roots to develop a singular style. The emergence of this style for Wenonah has been in the area of jazz, a music steeped in blues and gospel tradition.

Tradition is a key work in describing the music of Wenonah Brooks. In recent years modern jazz has taken on a chaotic element, breaking with it’s past and leaving many conservative jazz audiences wanting for the music they had grown to appreciate. Wenonah’s concept has been to bring the performance of jazz back to its fundamentals, namely, recognizable standard songs expressed in the form of the artist. Specifically her performance is a synthesis of standard material from Porter, Hart etc…and her personal style of subtle interpretation.

Wenonah’s notoriety has increased over the past years. Looking toward the future Wenonah is pursuing the study of music hoping to bring more of the standard songs of the past to the world of jazz through the application of jazz arranging. Her goal is to ultimately produce recorded music funded by jazz enthusiasts who are interested in preserving the authentic jazz tradition.

Recently, Wenonah finished a residency in Hopewell Elementary School with the music teacher, working with five fifth grades. She shared with them the history of blues and helped each class write lyrics and melody to their own blues song as a class project. The song that best demonstrated what the classes were taught was performed with Wenonah’s jazz trio at the annual spring concert.

Wenonah has a following that is kept abreast of her upcoming performances by means of periodic e-mails, internet bulletins and her own web site (www.notesfromnona.com).

Over the past seventeen years Wenonah has performed at an annual self produced jazz concert in her hometown of Hopewell at the Off-Broadstreet Theatre. Her special guests at various concerts have been pianist Dr. John Valerio, saxophonist Ralph Bowen, baritone saxophonist Denis DiBlasio and for the last three, tenor saxophonist Houston Person.

Wenonah Brooks 609 540-2980

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