Kate Kortum left the University of Miami's Frost School of Music three years ago as a jazz vocal student. She returns to Coral Gables on Thursday, Aug. 20, as the winner of one of the most prestigious jazz vocal competitions in the world.
Kortum, 24, will close the Community Arts Program's 41st consecutive Summer Concert Series at 7:30 p.m. at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd., according to the Gables Gazette. She'll perform as a duo with pianist Joel Wendt, a fellow Juilliard graduate.
Houston native won 2025 Sarah Vaughan competition over 200 entries
The Houston native won the 2025 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition on Nov. 23, 2025, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, beating more than 200 entries from vocalists in 27 countries and taking home the $5,000 top prize. The competition, nicknamed the "SASSY Awards," has previously launched five-time Grammy winner Samara Joy and fellow Frost alumna Arianna Neikrug.
"The Sarah Vaughan Competition has let me take my music all around the world, which was always a dream that I had but never thought could be realized," Kortum told the Miami Herald in June.
Since the win, she has toured Europe, Canada and Asia, using her passport for the first time.
Kortum credits Frost training as career takes her worldwide
Kortum graduated from Frost in 2023 and earned her master's at Juilliard in 2025. She credited her undergraduate training in a December 2025 University of Miami alumni feature, saying the Frost School "turned me upside down as a musician" and taught her the fundamentals behind everything she does.
Her two albums, "Good Woman" (2023) and "Wild Woman" (2025), reinterpret jazz standards through what she calls a distinctly female lens. Together they have topped 5.1 million streams. She has performed at Birdland, Blue Note and Dizzy's Club and collaborated with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Concert closes CAP's summer season, held in historic 1925 church
Mark Hart, CAP's executive and artistic director for the past 24 years, described the series to the Herald in June as "the presentation of incredible artists at the top of their craft." The nonprofit's summer concerts have drawn more than 70,000 attendees since 1985 and also fund year-round after-school music education through CAP's Miami Jazz Institute, which serves students from more than 59 Miami-Dade County schools.
Thursday's concert takes place inside one of the city's oldest landmarks. The church, designed by Kiehnel & Elliott in the Mediterranean Revival style, was dedicated in 1925 and became Florida's first church listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
If you go
Kate Kortum, Thursday, Aug. 20, 7:30 p.m., Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd. (across from the Biltmore Hotel). General admission: $35 advance, $40 door. Patron seating (rows 1-9): $50 advance, $55 door. Parking is free. Tickets: communityartsprogram.org or 305-448-7421, ext. 120.
CAP's summer series wraps with Thursday's concert. Fall programming has not yet been announced.
