Rising star vocalist Aanya Sengupta makes her return to The Bop Stop after graduating from Oberlin Conservatory last year for a very special duo show with her former teacher, Cleveland native Bobby Ferrazza. Tickets for tonight are $20 each in advance, $25 day of show (a $3 per ticket processing fee will be added to your purchase).

Featuring:

Aanya Sengupta - voice
Bobby Ferrazza - guitar

This event will also be livestreamed on BOP STOP's Youtube Channel at showtime. Accessing the stream is free but donations are encouraged and directly support the band.

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Aanya Sengupta is a jazz vocalist and music educator currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School. Praised for her musical sensitivity, devotion to the jazz tradition, and lucid storytelling, she has been featured at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Dizzy’s Club, the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Bop Stop, Green Room 42, and Blues Alley. She was awarded First Runner-Up at the 2025 Ella Fitzgerald International Jazz Vocal Competition.

Aanya earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a full-tuition scholarship recipient, studying privately with La Tanya Hall, Dr. Eddie Henderson, NEA Jazz Master Gary Bartz, and Gerald Cannon. At Juilliard, Aanya studies privately with Charenée Wade, with mentorship from Carla Cook, Gerald Cannon, and Kenny Washington.

Aanya has taught music at the JAZZ HOUSE KiDS and Jazz Power Initiative programs for jazz education in the NYC/NJ area, designing a music fundamentals curriculum for the latter, and has also instructed privately at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She is a 2026-27 Juilliard CLIMB Fellow (building literacy skills through arts exploration in children aged 4-10) and MORSE Fellow (teaching music enrichment and skills to students in Grades K-12 in schools and community music programs).

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Bobby Ferrazza was born in Cleveland and began studying guitar at 15, after developing a passion for music from listening to rock and the popular music of the time. Ferrazza branched out into many diverse forms of music, including classical, blues, ragtime, and bluegrass.

It wasn’t until he heard a George Benson record, however, that Ferrazza started to concentrate his efforts on jazz—an entirely new genre to him. After playing for less than a year, Ferrazza sought out jazz guitar legend Bill deArango for lessons.

DeArango had been a star in the 1940s, having played with many of the greats of those days: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Ben Webster, among others. The lessons with deArango were extremely formative for Ferrazza, who went on to study music at Cleveland State University. Other lessons followed with jazz guitar greats such as Joe Pass and Pat Martino.

A professional musician for more than 25 years, Ferrazza has performed in concerts all over the United States and beyond, with some of the most celebrated jazz musicians in the world, including Donald Byrd, Joey DeFrancesco, Joe Lovano, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, J.J. Johnson, Slide Hampton, Curtis Fuller, Billy Hart, Robin Eubanks, Gary Bartz, Dan Wall, Marcus Belgrave, Clark Terry, Steve Turre, Bill Watrous, Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Greg Bandy, Ernestine Anderson, and Vanessa Rubin.

He has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory since 1988. He also taught at the Interlochen Arts Academy from 1992-96.