Under the direction of Jason Moran, Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, the Jazz Ahead program identifies outstanding, emerging jazz artist-composers in their mid-teens to age twenty-five, and brings them together under the tutelage of experienced artist-instructors who coach and counsel them, helping to polish their performance, composing, and arranging skills. Betty Carter, who possessed one of this era's most extraordinary voices, was devoted to jazz education. Her Jazz Ahead program, which she brought to the Kennedy Center in 1998, has helped launch the careers of several of today's stars, including Cyrus Chestnut, Jason Moran, and Jacky Terrasson.
