Built so you meet people
We run live jazz every week in Collegetown, plus bigger events each semester.
Cornell is full of people who never meet each other. Everyone stays inside their major, their org, their house. It's not really a Cornell problem, it's a human one, and most people don't notice they're doing it.
So we build rooms where you sit down near people you don't know, and leave having met them. Our weekly residency has played Tres Leches every Wednesday since Spring 2025.
Nathan Choi · Piano
Nathan is a pianist from Vienna, Virginia, who has been playing since he was four. In Spring 2026 he earned a DownBeat Student Music Award for Outstanding Performance with Cornell's Herbert Gussman Jazz Septet, up against conservatories from across the country.
With Newark Academy's Chameleon Big Band he won Essentially Ellington at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2024, and he has played Rose Hall, the Appel Room, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New School. He also founded Clinical Soundscapes, a program exploring live music as a tool for patient care and dignity.
His playing is shaped by Red Garland, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans and Emmet Cohen. He studies Biology & Society as a premed at Cornell.
Theo Lobo · Drums
Theo is a drummer from Ithaca, New York, who has been part of the local music scene for years. He plays with After Six, the Dan Greenleaf Organization, the Drew Martin Quartet and Positive Press, and got his start with the Catbirds, a jazz quartet that performed throughout the area.
He is also a member of the Cornell Jazz Ensemble and Appel Combo, performing with guest artists including Vincent Herring, Sara Gazarek and Ingrid Jensen. With the Dan Greenleaf Organization he has toured Ithaca, Connecticut and Vermont, and he plays on Greenleaf's album Live at Ford Hall.
Influenced by Kendrick Scott, Johnathan Blake and Chris Dave, his playing centres on groove, feel and interaction. He is a senior at Cornell studying engineering.
Ted Crall · Bass
Ted is a bassist from Westfield, New Jersey, studying economics and history at Cornell. He has been playing bass since the eighth grade.
In 2024 his ensemble, the Newark Academy Chameleon Big Band, was chosen as a top 15 jazz band internationally and took first place at the Essentially Ellington Competition at Jazz at Lincoln Center, where Ted won an Outstanding Bass Award. He trained under Julius Tolentino and Chris Berger, has worked with clinicians including Paul Nedzela, Marcus Printup and Tatum Greenblatt, and has performed at Rose Hall and the Appel Room.
At Cornell he plays with the Cornell Jazz Ensemble and Cornell Jazz Small Groups, and he joined the Collegetown Jazz Club this year. His playing is shaped by Christian McBride, Ray Brown and Ron Carter.
Ali Awada · Manager
Ali manages the Collegetown Jazz Club. He's a junior in Cornell's Nolan School of Hotel Administration, studying hospitality with a minor in real estate, and he built the club around a simple idea: you can spend four years at Cornell surrounded by brilliant people and never actually meet any of them.
He handles the venues, the events and everything that isn't the music, from the weekly residency at Tres Leches to larger productions like The Masquerade, a seated jazz dinner for 160 with a full wine pairing.
He's originally from Brazil and Lebanon, and he's trying to build the kind of room in Ithaca that he thinks a college town should already have.