If life is an improvisation, Carleton’s jazz program teaches you how to live. Join program director and jazz pianist Laura Caviani for a conversation with singer/songwriter Rebecca McCartney ’21 about the breadth and depth of musical opportunity at Carleton and the ways it shapes its students and alums.
This event took place February 12, 2026.
About the Speakers
Laura Caviani is a native Minnesotan who as pianist, composer, and jazz educator has toured across the US, Japan, and Argentina. She has taught at Carleton since 2003 and has headed its Jazz Area since 2017. In addition to her teaching duties, she plays in a trio, featuring Chris Bates (bass) and Dave Schmalenberger (drums), who perform every Sunday at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. They have two recordings: Confluence and Mysterious Thelonious. She has also recently released a duo recording with Dr. David Milne, Tableaux, which explores jazz interpretations of the impressionistic composers Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, and Erik Satie. Recent commissions include The Agitators (2022), featuring Carleton’s Choir and Jazz Ensemble and words of Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Carleton’s own Paul Wellstone. More recently, Caviani and the Jazz Area students collaborated with Theatre Department students on a new interpretation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, featuring new music by Caviani.
Rebecca McCartney ’21 is a singer/songwriter born and raised in New York City. Known for her reflective, endearing lyrics, magnetic live performances, and signature buttery vocals, she has performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and toured across the US. She is fresh off the release of her third EP: an ode to being overwhelmed by the rich emotion and chaos of life in your 20s. She fuses influences across genres, inspired by Joni Mitchell’s candid poetry, Norah Jones’s smooth, melodic tone, and Olivia Dean’s modern nostalgia, weaving together these eclectic perspectives to forge something at once fresh and retro, filled with soul and laughter. Alongside her own music, this past year saw her singing and arranging background vocals for artists like Sheryl Crow, Maggie Rogers, St. Vincent, and Madison Cunningham.