VERONNEAU

The Band

Some music asks you to choose a lane. VERONNEAU refuses. The Washington DC-based duo — vocalist Lynn Veronneau and guitarist Ken Avis — moves freely between bossa nova and French chanson, swing and folk, English and French and Portuguese and Spanish, original songs and beloved classics, and somehow makes it all feel inevitable. What holds it together is not a genre but a philosophy: that the song is everything, and that beauty has no borders.

They have sold out Blues Alley, filled the Kennedy Center, and graced the main stage at Strathmore. They have played the DC Jazz Festival, broadcast live on the BBC, and toured through Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Sweden, and the UK. Their albums have landed in the Top 10 across Jazz, World, and Folk charts simultaneously — a feat that tells you everything about how difficult they are to pin down, and how little that matters to their fans. Seven Mid-Atlantic regional awards — Best Group, Best Vocals, Best Recording among them — confirm what audiences already know: this is a band that delivers.

Veronneau's creative life extends well beyond the stage. Their signature shows — "Blue Tapestry," a deeply personal celebration of Joni Mitchell and Carole King; and the "French-American Songbook," tracing the musical love affair between two continents — are part concert, part storytelling, entirely transporting. They have danced (literally) with award-winning contemporary company Company Danzante, brought an original theatrical work to the Atlas Theater, and co-curated the Strathmore Jazz Samba Project Festival, the venue's first NEA award-winning production. In 2025, they joined the Virginia Touring Artists roster. Whether performing as an intimate duo or fronting a full ensemble, VERONNEAU are as alive in the studio as they are under the lights — proof of which is their acclaimed Live at Blues Alley album.

Lynn Veronneau — Vocals

Lynn Veronneau's voice arrives like something you didn't know you were missing. Trained classically near her native Montreal and then further in France, she developed a technique so refined it disappears — leaving only the feeling. From there she traveled far: through folk, blues, and funk, through smoky clubs and grand concert halls, before settling into the jazz and pop world where she has made her name. She can be serene or commanding, a whisper or a wave, and she moves between the two with the ease of someone who has truly nothing to prove. Reviewers have reached for Stacy Kent, Astrid Gilberto, and Gretchen Parlato to describe her — and those comparisons aren't wrong, exactly, but they don't quite capture the warmth she brings to every room she sings in.

Her story has its share of singular moments. As a member of Les Horribles Cernettes — an all-female vocal group performing in France — Lynn became part of a quiet piece of internet history: the band appeared in the very first photograph ever published on the World Wide Web. These days, her history-making is closer to home. With Ken, she co-hosted radio programs on WERA FM, curates the Passport Music festival, and runs the boutique label AntidoteSounds. The two also serve as mentors through Strathmore's Artists in Residence program, nurturing the next generation of musicians with the same generosity that defines everything they do.

Ken Avis — Guitar & Vocals

Ken Avis came to VERONNEAU the long way — and the long way made him extraordinary. His early years performing with the WC Handy Award-winning Otis Grand Blues Band gave him a feel for the roots of American music that still runs through everything he plays. His years as a music journalist sharpened his ear for what matters in a song. And his work as a historian — developing the Music City DC lecture series, tracing Washington's musical DNA from 1800 to the present at the Smithsonian, American University, George Mason University, and beyond — gave him a sense of music not just as sound, but as living culture. He met Lynn at a festival in Switzerland, and the rest, as they say, is history — the kind he now helps write.

As a composer, Ken is hitting his stride. His 2024 gold award at the Mid-Atlantic Songwriting Competition for Better World joined finalist honors from the Florida Songwriting Competition, recognition through the Acoustic Guitar Songwriting Project, and an Emergent Seed arts award. The Atlas Performing Arts Center commissioned and staged his play Bossa Fever!, set to original VERONNEAU music. He co-produced two documentary films — Bossa Nova – The Brazilian Music That Charmed the World and Anacostia Delta, the latter airing on PBS and paying tribute to DC guitar legends Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan. He co-curated the NEA award-winning Strathmore Jazz Samba Project Festival, and serves as an Artist Ambassador for Córdoba Guitars — a role that suits a player whose sound is as considered and refined as his.