Stacey Kent's jazz night of Great American standards and a taster of her next album

"Fans of the Great American Songbook won’t want to miss this opportunity to see one of the world’s leading jazz vocalists performing here in York," says J-Night director David Porter. "It will be an evening of timeless classics performed by some of the most accomplished musicians playing today."

Stacey, 48, enjoys her York shows as much as any. "I've played the Theatre Royal a few times before; we play so many different venues around the world, mostly theatres, and it's fun to play different rooms with different acoustics," she says.

Since her last Theatre Royal concert, the main house has been redeveloped, creating a new intimacy now that the stalls meet the dress circle with no gap. Useful information, you might think, to pass on to Stacey, but "intimacy was never an issue," she says. "When I say 'intimate', I play 3,000 seaters but it can still be intimate. The capacity doesn't matter so much as the thought that goes into the design."

Stacey may be classed as a jazz singer, but she doesn't think of her singing "in terms of its genre". "When you're going out and making music, all sorts of people are attracted to all sorts of different music, and for us making music is about humanity sharing the human condition and finding the poetry in beautiful sounds," she says.

"Jazz has a great pulse, a great groove and it makes people feel they can escape for a couple of hours and that's always been the case, but it's also such fun and we're never blasé about that.

"That's why we find it such a privilege travelling around the world, playing in 50 countries and meeting on common ground because music has no barriers, especially in a world that is so troubled and disparate. We're part of the gazillions that try to find similarities and that feels all the more important to us today."

Stacey Kent: "Jazz has a great pulse, a great groove and it makes people feel they can escape for a couple of hours"

The Theatre Royal's autumn brochure says tonight's concert with Stacey's regular sextet line-up features "beautiful, stripped-back interpretations of much-loved jazz standards, such as Embraceable You and In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning from Stacey's latest album, Tenderly, produced by  veteran Brazilian guitarist-composer-producer Roberto Menescal", founding father of Bossa Nova and titan of Latin Jazz.

Stacey, however, clarifies what lies in store beyond the Great American Songbook. "The album came out not quite a year ago, at the end of last year, so actually it's not dominating the set list now.

"We're touring but at the same time we've just begun the new album, so I can't help but sing new songs as they take shape," she says, revealing that husband and saxophonist Jim Tomlinson has been writing material for next year's record, including one co-written with novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.

"The repertoire in York will be some songs from Tenderly and a little preview of the next record, which will be coming out in September, so it's really fun to do some of the new songs we'll be recording, and because the band and I know each other so well, we can roll the dice on the night to see what we'll play."

Stacey was in the recording studio on Monday this week at Angel Studios, Islington, working on a record that will be made in London and mixed in Sussex. "The reason we've started so early is because it's an orchestral album, with so many musicians on there, well over 50, and we have to finish it by March," she says.

J-Night presents Stacey Kent at York Theatre Royal tonight at 8pm. Tickets update: still available at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.