Vocal legend Dianne Reeves, pianist Kenny Barron among Tbilisi Jazz Festival headliners

Five-time Grammy Award-winning singer Dianne Reeves and prolific pianist Kenny Barron will be among headliners of the upcoming Tbilisi Jazz Festival, with the latter joined by bassist Dave Holland and drummer Johnathan Blake in a roster that features other talent.

Reeves, a legendary vocalist who has worked with famed names including Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard and seen as continuing the tradition of performers like Dinah Washington, will close the popular local fest's 23rd edition, set to open next month.

Winner of five Grammies between 2001-2015, Reeves has been called "one of jazz's greatest living vocalists" by JazzTimes and distinguished with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters award, widely recognised as United States’ highest honour for the musical genre.

Recipient of honorary doctorate titles from the Berklee College of Music and The Juilliard School, two of US' major schools of music, she will close the Tbilisi event on March 28 at the Rustaveli Theatre along with her band.

On the other end of the festival programme, young British cellist, singer and composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson will raise the curtains of the event three days earlier.

[Witter-Johnson is a] performer of extraordinary versatility and her live shows are intimate journeys that chronicle her experience as a woman in the 21st century" - Musicvein

Praised as a "rising star" of the UK scene and the "most in-demand artist of the European festival season" by Tbilisi festival promoters, she became the only non-American artist to win the Amateur Night Live at New York's Apollo Theater in 2010.

Her performance will be immediately followed by the trio involving Kenny Barron, Dave Holland and Johnathan Blake at the same venue.

Barron, a pianist involved in a myriad of recordings between 1967-2018, has been nominated for nine different Grammy Awards. In the trio he is flanked by Montreal Jazz Festival's Miles Davis Award-winning bassist Holland, who has also received prizes from the Down Beat magazine and Musician and Acoustic Bassist of the Year titles from the Jazz Journalists' Association.

Blake is a recipient of the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award and has been nominated for a Grammy Award, with Smalls Jazz Club website noting his "musicianship, professionalism, and positive attitude are few of the attributes that make him the choice drummer for many".

The guest performers will be supported during the festival by local acts on four different days of the festival. Two quartets led by Guja Mardini and Luka Topuria are on the bill along with the Reso Kiknadze Sextet and the Gia Rakviashvili Trio.

The 23rd edition of the festival will run at the Rustaveli Theatre - located at 17, Shota Rustaveli Avenue - and Jazz Club Singer, found at 1, Petre Melikishvili Street.