Jayme Stone

To keep the music playing during this unpredictable time, we are requiring all patrons and staff to wear a mask while attending events at Chautauqua. To read more, click here.

Jayme Stone is a musician, composer, instigator, producer, and educator. On any given day, you might find him in his studio reworking a little-known hymn learned from a field recording, producing a session with musicians from Bamako or New York, creating experimental soundscapes, or tucking his kids in on time so he can get back to writing the next verse of a new song.
 
Stone, a “consummate team player” (Downbeat), has developed a process of trawling for understudied sounds in the more arcane corners of the world to see how they’ll land in his musical universe. His many collaborators have included Margaret Glaspy, Moira Smiley, Tim O’Brien, Bruce Molsky, Julian Lage, Dom Flemons, Bassekou Kouyate, and more. Guided by his own aesthetic compass and a desire to let his collaborators “make the sounds that only they know how to make”, he has made a surprise album every two or three years—seven total. Albums like Africa to Appalachia, a polyrhythmic tale of two continents and the Lomax Project, which re-imagines songs collected by American folklorist Alan Lomax. 
 
On his latest album, AWake, Stone breaks new ground: from folk musician and composer to experimental pop singer and producer. A unique tonal palette blends with deft storytelling and disarmingly honest lyrics to create a sonic world both eminently engaging and full of nuance and surprise. Co-produced by David Travers-smith, AWake features Felicity Williams (Bahamas), Daniela Gesundheit (Feist), Jason Burger (Big Thief), Jason Linder (David Bowie), and more.