Play On 2025

Featuring Resavoir

with a performance by Mamey

Monday, October 27

Doors 5:30pm · Show 7pm

City Winery Chicago

1200 W Randolph St

We are thrilled to announce that Resavoir will headline our 7th annual Play On, with additional performances by Mamey and Merit’s very own Honors Jazz Combo.

Enjoy the gorgeous music, bid on exciting raffle prizes, and support equal access to high-quality music education in Chicago.

Tickets Sales Begin Friday, August 22 →

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Sponsor Play On

Interested in sponsoring Play On? Click the button below to complete our online sponsorship form. If you have any questions or would like to submit a payment via check, please contact Amy Riske at ariske@meritmusic.org.

Sponsor Play On

Resavoir

Resavoir is the work of Chicago-born and based musician, composer and producer Will Miller. Miller is a jazz trumpeter and composer by training – first via Chicago Public Schools and Merit School of Music, then Oberlin Conservatory. As an instrumentalist he’s played on recordings by Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne, Mac Miller, and for several years was a regular member of the indie band Whitney.

In 2019 Miller released Resavoir’s debut album Resavoir to high praise, including a glowing 8.2 review in Pitchfork. Later that year, Miller and his live version of the Resavoir band (featuring former Noname musical director Akenya, saxophonist/vocalist/MC Sen Morimoto, and others) did their London debut as part of the first Boiler Room Festival. While they were in London, they did a recording session at Total Refreshment Studios. One of those recordings was a cover of the Charles Tolliver song “Plight,” and the track was released by Blue Note Records as part of the compilation Transmissions from Total Refreshment Centre.

Miller spent much of the pandemic years in his studio, and much of 2022 on tour with Whitney. In 2023, Resavoir released their second self-titled album, a more polished and focused presentation of Miller’s evolving skills as a studio producer, with his compositional touch more articulate than ever. The collection’s eleven tracks feature a massive list of contributors including Elton Aura, Whitney, Akenya, Matt Gold, Eddie Burns, Lane Beckstrom, Jeremy Cunningham, Irvin Pierce, Macie Stewart, Peter Manheim and more. Across 2024, Resavoir released several singles including “Life Before,” a Knox Fortune remix of their track “Future,” and a live-in-studio cover of “Love Theme from Spartacus.” Resavoir capped off 2024 with a grand performance at Chicago’s Thalia Hall under the name Orchestra Resavoir, with Miller arranging a program of his Resavoir compositions for an 18-piece philharmonic.

In 2025, Miller released Horizon, a collaborative album with longtime friend and fellow Chicago-based musician Matt Gold (a seasoned multi-instrumentalist and accomplished guitarist who’s worked with Makaya McCraven, Jamila Woods, and Greg Ward). What started as a love letter to their shared affinity for ‘60s and ‘70s Brazilian music evolved into a dynamic and sprawling body of work that saw its release on International Anthem.

Most recently, Miller presented Orchestra Resavoir in a landmark performance at Chicago’s prestigious Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in August 2025.

Mamey

Julián Pujols Quall is a Dominican-American pianist and keyboardist, improviser, composer and educator from Chicago who has performed classical and jazz repertoire throughout the continental United States as well as in the Dominican Republic, Spain, Belgium, Puerto Rico and Mexico. A classically trained artist, Merit alum, Peabody Conservatory graduate, and DePaul University National Concerto Competition for Young Performers First Prize Winner, their work has found a home in jazz performance, improvisation and cross-cultural collaboration since developing experimental collaborative programs as a founding member of the Peabody Improvisers Collective. They are a curator for the Discoveries Hear & Be Heard series at Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and a 2025 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Institute Fellow. Julián has been lead instructor for the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Combo at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center After School Matters and is currently a collaborative pianist at The Joffrey Ballet’s Grainger Academy. They are the host of “The Changes”, a trilingual interview show presenting local and international musicians on Lumpen Radio. Julián completed a 2024 Banff Center for the Arts Jazz and Sonic Arts composition/performance residency, released the single Rothko; Tlaloc and Totec with Carrier Records in 2023, and most recently had their compositions Chord Prelude and Moriviví premiere at the DiMenna Center for New and Classical Music during the 2024 Yarn/Wire Institute Festival in New York.

Mamey is a jazz project founded in 2023 centering on Dominico-Haitian music. Debuted in Belgium, Mamey has performed throughout Chicago including at the Old Town School of Folk Music, The Jazz Showcase, Fitzgerald’s, and Chicago Park District’s Night Out in The Parks series. The group completed a spring of 2024 South Arts Jazz Tour of the East Coast and a 2025 tour of the East Coast and the Caribbean and will release its debut album in early 2026 thanks to a Pathways to Jazz grant.

Honors Jazz Combo

The Honors Jazz Combo, under the direction of Alex Beltran, is Merit’s premier jazz performing ensemble comprised of the Alice S. Pfaelzer Conservatory’s most advanced student jazz musicians. Students audition for the program on an annual basis and hail from all over the greater Chicagoland area.

Sponsorships & Levels of Support

2025 Play On Sponsors

Presenting

Mike & Bethany Evon

Jam

Abiman Rajadurai and Joanna Bartold

Interlude

Nishad and Pinkey Parmar – LOUD Capital

Cadence

Michael Andrews & Ryan Ruskin

Scat

Doyenne Wealth Advisors
Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Raffle & In-Kind Donations

The Chicago Firehouse Restaurant
Chicago White Sox
City Winery Chicago
Four Seasons Hotel Chicago
Goodman Theatre
Navy Pier
PRP Wine International – Chicago
The Severson Family
Solo Salon
UChicago Presents