DMV Stage
(District of Maryland  & Virginia)

Your Host Iva Ambush

IVA JEAN AMBUSH

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Iva Ambush, the scat lady, is a jazz vocalist from Frederick, Maryland. She has performed at Birdland, the DC Jazz Festival, the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Alice's Jazz and Cultural Society, Blues Alley, Le Duc des Lombards,  Bethesda Blues and Jazz Club, International Association of Jazz Educators Conferences, Frederick - In The Streets Festival, the Billy Strayhorn 100th Celebration, WPFW 89.3 Live @ 5, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Amherst Fine Arts Centre, Ritz Carlton Pentagon, Frederick's 4th of July Celebration (multiple years), the East Coast Jazz Festival, the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, and more. Iva enjoys exploring the concepts of jazz phrasing and rhythms with the help of jazz legends, Sheila Jordan, Dr Horace Boyer, and Ronnie Wells.  Some of her other influences include Dr Frederick Tillis, Prof. Charles Ellison and the late Dr Billy Taylor and Dr Bro. Yusef Lateef.

She has a family full of Jazz Musicians which include on the maternal side, late trumpeter Lester Bowie, the late Byron Bowie (saxophonist/composer/arranger), Defunkt's founder Joe Bowie, guitarist Jonathan Townes and on the paternal side, bassist Scott Ambush (Spyro Gyra [and formerly with Stanley Turrentine), and pianist Allen Ambush.  There are a host of others too numerous to name.

Ms Ambush is working on her sophomore CD, Mosaic Voices of Four Women, which is a homage to Abbey Lincoln, Lena Horne, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Nina Simone. In 2021, music written by the pioneers, Iva Jean Ambush, will demonstrate why the "Voice" remains the epitome of communication via syncopation ... an instrument, a language and a conversation.

www.IvaAmbush.com

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Dr Eric L. Holmes

Dr Eric L. Holmes is a senior coordinator in the Otolaryngology department at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. His fervour to excel and push his abilities has led him to earn an impressive number of awards at Johns Hopkins: the Edward Halle Award, the Martin Luther King Award, the Radiology Customer Service Award for two years, and the Employee of the Year. With a passion and dedication to furthering his education and helping others through his teachings, Dr Holmes has earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biblical studies and theology, and a master’s and a doctorate in Christian education at North Carolina College of Theology. Also has been featured in the Enoch Pratt Library Compass in the Writers Live and in edition, his book is now available in the Enoch Pratt Libraries, the Baltimore County Libraries and Dauphin County Libraries in Pa.