Danielle Ponder

Bravery can take many forms. For Danielle Ponder, it took the shape of a leap of faith: leaving her successful day job working as an attorney in the public defender’s office in her hometown of Rochester, New York, to devote herself full-time to sharing her powerful voice with the world. While working as a public defender, Danielle also toured Europe and scored an opening spot with George Clinton. In 2018, after five years as a public defender, she made the gutsy decision to pursue her No. 1 passion — music.

In 2021, Danielle performed at the Newport Jazz Festival where her performance was hailed as one of the stand-out performances of the event. 2022 was a banner year for Danielle with appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers and CBS This Morning, in addition to tours with Marcus Mumford, Amos Lee, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, and Leon Bridges. On September 16th, 2022, Danielle released her debut album, Some of Us Are Brave, on Future Classic. Written and recorded over three years, the album is a refreshingly original, shiver-inducing mix of pop, R&B, blues, rock, and moody trip-hop topped by Ponder’s celestial voice — an instrument that can plumb melancholy depths with a heartsick murmur and scrape the sky with hurricane force wails.

Danielle continues to advocate for criminal justice reform and has been an influential leader in the Black Lives Matter movement in Rochester, NY.