St. Cecilia Music Center Jazz series continues Thursday, March 5, when Grammy Award winning jazz vocalist Luciana Souza comes to the Royce Auditorium Stage with a program called “The Book of Longing”, performing alongside Chico Pinheiro and Scott Colley for “a night of sultry Brazilian jazz.”
Souza according to supplied information, “transcends traditional boundaries around musical styles, offering solid roots in jazz, sophisticated lineage in world music, and an enlightened approach to new music.”
“We are thrilled to have the multi-talented Luciana Souza on stage at St. Cecilia Music Center ,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material. “To quote Billboard Magazine, ‘Her music soulfully reflects, wistfully regrets, romantically woos, joyfully celebrates …’ All of us are looking forward to hearing her amazing voice and discovering her joyful, soulful and heartfelt music.”
As a jazz vocal leader, Souza has been releasing acclaimed recordings since 2002, including her six Grammy nominated records Brazilian Duos, North and South, Duos II, Tide, Duos III, and The Book of Chet. Her debut recording for Universal, The New Bossa Nova, was produced by her husband, Larry Klein, and was met with widespread critical acclaim.
Souza’s recordings also include two works based on poetry — The Poems of Elizabeth Bishop And Other Songs, and Neruda.
From 2005 to 2010, she was the Jazz Artist in Residence with the prestigious San Francisco Performances. In 2005 and 2013 Luciana was awarded Best Female Jazz Singer by the Jazz Journalists Association.
For more information about Luciana Souza visit her website at lucianasouza.com.
Concert tickets for Luciana Souza are $40 and $45 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org.
A pre-concert reception for $15 at 6:30 pm, with wine and hors d’oeuvres, is available by reservation in advance (reserve by Friday, February 28). A post-concert party with dessert, coffee and wine is open to all ticket-holders to meet the artists, obtain autographs and CD purchases.
Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal, she of the quintessential country voice and he of the acoustic guitar mastery, on stage at a unknown venue. (Courtesy of the artist)
By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
60-second Review
The St. Cecilia Music Center’s Acoustic Cafe folk series, and the acoustics of the Royce Auditorium, was made for nights like the Feb. 19 visit by Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal, she of the quintessential country voice and he of the acoustic guitar mastery.
Cash, accompanied only by Leventhal — her husband, guitarist extraordinaire, surprisingly subtle pianist, and talented writer/producer — offered up a nearly 2-hour, 18-song set that almost equally left the sell-out audience in blissful silence and had them springing to their feet in appreciation, some before the song actually finished.
The pair’s set fittingly relied heavily on songs from her most recent release, 2018’s She Remembers Everything, co-written by Cash and Leventhal, who also co-produced the songs with Tucker Martine (The Decembrists, My Morning Jacket, Mavis Staples; to name just a few).
Some of the newer songs hint, if not actually shout, about the current sad state of affairs of an America tribalized by politics, reeling from societal conflicts, and grappling with religious and family transitions. Leading off the night with “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For” — “Work me like a battlefield/Locked inside a holy war/Your love and my due diligence/The only thing worth fighting for” — was no accident.
And the album’s title song itself, and Cash’s introduction of “She Remembers Everything”, offered stark commentary on the status of women in the home, the workplace and the modern world.
Rosanne Cash. (Supplied)
But other songs on the new recording harken back to the everlasting focus of all great country/folk/Americana music: the relationships between lovers and life partners that fail as often as they succeed. “Crossing to Jerusalem”, she explained, is a beautiful commentary on Rosanne and John’s 25-year journey in marriage, and a shared love of music. — “This is our deal with the sinners and saints/The law and up above/We’ll be crossing to Jerusalem/With nothing but our love”.
But Cash did not forget her past in the set list, picking selectively and effectively from her very early years (1981’s “Seven Year Ache”); her 2009 release The List, an album based on a list of 100 greatest country and American songs that father Johnny Cash gave her when she was 18 (incuding covers of “Long Black Veil” and “Ode to Billy Joe”); and her Grammy winning 2015 release The River & the Thread (“A Feather is Not a Bird”).
The duo’s two-song encore was a direct homage to country/folk musics past. First with a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Tennessee Flat Top Box” — one of the many songs on which Leventhal and his guitar work shined — and well as the classic “500 Miles Away from Home.”
Cash and Leventhal sent everybody home, like a good country meal, well satisfied.
May I have more, please?
Never heard of Johnny Cash’s list of 100 must-listen “essential” country/folk songs?
The list includes, at least as recounted and recorded by Rosanne, the expected — “Motherless Children”, the southern gospel traditional popularized by the Carter Family, and “Take These Chains From My Heart”, the last song Hank Williams recorded. But also some you might not expect, including “Girls from the North Country” by Bob Dylan.
Rosanne’s complete list from her father is apparently still unknown, and she is not taking at this point. See one of many stories here.
For information and tickets on remaining St. Cecilia Music Center 2019-20 season concerts visit scmc-online.org.
Raul Midón brings stunning guitar work and hypnotic vocals to his music, but he politely declines to step into any musical-genre box. (Courtesy of the artist)
By K.D. Norris ken@wktv.org
Raul Midón, according to no-less a critic than the New York Times, is “a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus.” So while stunning guitar work and hypnotic vocals are the focal point of the singer-songwriter’s music, he politely declines to step into any musical-genre box.
So, he just happens to be scheduled as part of the St. Cecilia Music Center’s Acoustic Café folk series of concerts, with a debut appearance scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 27. Tickets are still available.
Raul Midón. (Courtesy of the artist)
“My only link to the folk genre is acoustic guitar,” Midón said to WKTV in a recent email conversation. “I’m a jazz trained singer songwriter guitarist with a black and Latin heritage. But I write and sing songs accompanied by acoustic guitar.”
His unclassifiable versatility is evidenced by his having released 10 studio albums as a solo artist, being dubbed “an eclectic adventurist” by People magazine, having collaborated with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, Queen Latifah and Snoop Dogg, and contributed to the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s film “She Hate Me.”
And now, on his latest album, If You Really Want, released in September 2019 and arranged by Vince Mendoza, Midón’s voice and guitar blend with an actual orchestra — the equally diverse Metropole Orkest, a multiple Grammy winning ensemble orchestra based in the Netherlands often called a “hybrid orchestra” due to its ability to float between jazz, big band and symphony orchestra music.
But, Midón said to WKTV about the recording — and re-recording — of If You Really Want, the artist is a bit of a musical perfectionist and tinkerer.
“Once the ensemble parts were tracked, I took the recordings home, taking my time to re-cut the vocals and guitar so that they were as nuanced as possible,” he said in supplied material.
“In today’s climate, time is money, more than ever, unless it’s in the comfort of your own home studio,” Midón said to WKTV. “The budget did not allow for me to sing with the orchestra in the studio. But it’s a nice compromise, plus I have the skills to achieve that.”
Musical talent, musical editing skills and musical confidence, are clearly in abundance with Midón, despite the fact that he is blind — evidenced by the title of Midón’s 2017 release: Bad Ass and Blind.
And that blindness also does not stop him from being at home with a live audience, feeding off the unseen audience, in fact.
“Energy isn’t visible, so what would blindness matter,” he said to WKTV. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years or so, I can read an audience in my own way. Applause is just one way. But if you are in Japan, silence and attentiveness would be another.”
For more information on Raul Midón — and his new album, The Mirror, due out March 13 — visit his website at raulmidon.com.
Two other St. Cecilia Acoustic Café concerts remain for this season, both with tickets available, include Grammy-award winning folk/Americana singer and songwriter Marc Cohn — he of “Walking in Memphis” but so much more — returns to St. Cecilia on March 19.
Then Shawn Colvin returns for her second appearance at St. Cecilia, on May 19, performing her newly released album Steady On Acoustic in its entirety. Her original 1989 album Steady On became her first Grammy Award winning album.
Tickets for Raul Midón on Feb. 27 are $40 and $45 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org. A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party with a cash bar will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to possibly meet Midón and obtain signed autographs of his CDs.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center artists visiting for the concert will be pianist and co-artistic director Wu Han, violinist Paul Huang, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Clive Greensmith. (Supplied)
By WKTV Staff ken@wktv.org
The classic French music of Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Ravel. The masterful musicians of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The exquisite acoustics of the Royce Auditorium Performance Hall.
Sounds like a perfect night of “French Enchantment”.
St. Cecilia Music Center’s second chamber music series concert if the season, set for Thursday, Jan. 23, will begin and end with early works by Saint-Saëns and Fauré that “recreate the elegant atmosphere of 19-century Parisian salons,” according to supplied material. In between will be Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello, “written soon after World War I, where he used just two string instruments to produce a composition of unique, austere beauty.”
Lipman Matthew (Supplied/Jiyang Chen)
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center artists visiting for the concert will be pianist and co-artistic director Wu Han, violinist Paul Huang, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Clive Greensmith.
“We are truly excited about this unique concert, ‘French Enchantment’, with the Chamber Music Society, as they communicate, through music, the beauty of French history and culture,” St Cecilia executive director Cathy Holbrook said in supplied material. “The audience will experience four amazing artists performing French music within our intimate world-class Royce Auditorium Performance Hall.”
“French Enchantment” selections will include: Trio No. 1 in F major for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 18 (written 1863-1864) and composed by Camille Saint-Saëns; Sonata for Violin and Cello (written 1920-1922) and composed by Maurice Ravel; and Quartet No. 1 in C minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 15 (written 1876-1879; Revised in 1883) and composed by Gabriel Fauré.
Ravel’s work, The Sonata for Violin and Cello, remains one of the most challenging, enigmatic, least-known, and fascinating of Ravel’s compositions.
“I believe that the sonata marks a turning point in my career,” Ravel said of the work. “Bareness is here driven to the extreme: restraint from harmonic charm; more and more emphatic reversion to the spirit of melody.”
The final Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center concert of the season will take place on April 30, with Wu Han and cellist David Finckel both returning to Grand Rapids to perform with violinist Arnaud Sussman and violist Paul Neubauer on a program titled “From Prague to Vienna” and featuring three composers who mentored and inspired each other: Brahms, Dvořák and Suk.
Tickets for the Jan. 23 chamber music concert are $45 and $40 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org. Ticket-holders are invited to a pre-concert artist talk at 7 p.m. prior to the 7:30 p.m. concert.
A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party, with complimentary wine will also be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists in person and to obtain signed CDs of their releases.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center begins their eight season at St. Cecilia Music Center on Thursday, Nov. 21, in a program entitled: Great Innovators, featuring the powerful works of brilliant composers Beethoven, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and Smetana.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center artists who will perform include Anne Marie McDermott, piano; Ida Klavafian, violin; Gary Hoffman, cello; and José Franch-Ballester, clarinet.
The program features Beethoven’s innovative Trio in B-flat major for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, Op. 11, the first of its kind to include the clarinet in a trio; Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du sold (The Soldier’s Tale), Trio Version for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano, a piece that introduced the composer’s wildly controversial music extremism to the chamber music stage in the early 1920’s; Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words for Piano, an invention all his own; and Smetana’s Trio in G minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 15, the first major chamber work from the Bohemian region.
“It is truly a special experience to see the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center perform at St. Cecilia Music Center,” said Executive Director Cathy Holbrook. “These artists are amazing to watch with incredible artistry that is flawless. To hear the works of four powerful and brilliant composers — Beethoven, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and Smetana — with these incredible artists in our world-class hall will be a memorable experience.”
Tickets for the Nov. 21 CMS of Lincoln Center concert are $45 and $40 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org.
A pre-concert reception for $15 will take place at 6:30 p.m. with wine and dos d’oeuvres, is available by reservation in advance (by Friday, Nov.15). A post-concert reception with dessert, coffee and wine is open to all ticket-holders to meet the artists and to obtain signed CDs of their releases.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Series will return on Jan. 23, 2020 with a program entitled French Enchantment where the audience will experience the grace, wit, and charm of French music. The program begins and ends with early works by Saint-Saëns and Fauré that recreate the elegant atmosphere of 19-century Parisian salons. In between the two works will be Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello, written soon after World War I, where he used just two string instruments to produce a composition of unique, austere beauty. CMS artists performing include pianist and Co-Artistic Director Wu Han, violinist Paul Huang, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Clive Greensmith.
On April 30, 2020, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Co-Artistic Directors Wu Han (piano) and David Finckel (cello) will perform with violinist Arnaud Sussman and violist Paul Neubauer on a program entitled From Prague to Vienna. This concert celebrates friendship and family with three composers who mentored and inspired each other: Brahms, Dvořák and Suk. Brahms discovered Dvořák through a composition competition and helped him rise to international stardom, and became his lifelong friend and mentor. In turn, Suk was one of Dvořák’s favorite students and eventually became his son-in-law.
The St. Cecilia Music Center Acoustic Cafe Folk Series is usually all about the singer/songwriters, and the list of fine concerts in the series got a bit longer and better recently with the announced return of Grammy award winners Marc Cohn and Shawn Colvin, who is currently revisiting her classic 1989 album Steady On.
Cohn, who delivered a great set at St. Cecilia in 2017, will return on March, 19, 2020. Colvin, who last visited Royce Auditorium in 2016, will visit on May 19.
“Since he was last here … Marc has spent time on the road with legendary Michael McDonald, worked closely with David Crosby and other American music greats,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material. “His appearance will also closely follow the release of his collaborative record with gospel legends Blind Boys of Alabama. This will be one of our most exciting concerts featuring a terrifically talented artist and amazing songwriter.”
The two concerts add to an upcoming folk series schedule which includes The Infamous Stringdusters of Thursday, Feb. 6; Rosanne Cash with John Leventhal on Wednesday, Feb. 20; Chris Thile on Tuesday, Feb. 25; and Raul Midón on Thursday, Feb. 27.
Marc Cohn. (Supplied)
While Cohn won a Grammy for his classic ballad “Walking in Memphis” in 1991, he has “solidified his place as one of this generation’s most compelling singer-songwriters, combining the precision of a brilliant tunesmith with the passion of a great soul man,” according to supplied material.
In August of this year, Cohn released a collaborative record with gospel legends Blind Boys of Alabama, Work To Do, comprised of three studio tracks by Cohn and the Blind Boys — two originals, including the title track, and a version of the gospel standard “Walk In Jerusalem” — plus seven intimate live performances recorded at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook, Conn., during a taping of the PBS series “The Kate”.
Shawn Colvin is expected to perform her newly released album Steady On Acoustic in its entirety. Her original 1989 album Steady On was her first Grammy Award winning album. (She has three Grammy’s to her resume.)
Shawn Colvin. (Supplied/Alexandra Valenti)
“I’ve played these songs countless times, primarily as a solo acoustic artist. All in all, this is the incarnation that feels most genuine,” Colvin said in supplied material. “And so, to commemorate this milestone I decided to celebrate Steady On by recording it again, this time using only my voice and my guitar. This represents who I am as an artist and all I ever wanted to be.”
In promotional material, Colvin also talks about bringing 30-year lens to her treasured songs, casting new light on the stories she first told as a young artist.
“I was 32 years old, and the dream of my life had been fulfilled,” Colvin says, “not only because I made an album but mostly because I had written or co-written every song, an accomplishment that was hard won. I was so proud. My feeling was then — and still is— that if I never made another album, Steady On would have been enough.”
More about Marc Cohn can be found on his website marccohnmusic.com .
More about Shawn Colvin can be found at her website at shawncolvin.com .
Marc Cohn, Shawn Colvin and all folk series concert tickets can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org. A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” reception with a cash bar will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to possibly meet the artists obtain signed CDs of his many releases.
Pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Julian Lage will perform a St. Cecilia Music Center begins its jazz series this month. (from promotional material)
By K.D. Norris ken@wktv.org
Pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Julian Lage, like two good friends who occasionally share coffee and stories — which is kind-of how they met — will meet up again for some wordless musical discussion as St. Cecilia Music Center begins its jazz series this month.
The story goes that Hersch and Lage, both with impressive resumes as front men and ensemble players in a wide range of musical genres but always focused on jazz, first met at a coffee shop in Boston and stayed together long enough to produce the much admired 2013 duo release “Free Flying”.
They are back together, undoubtedly having more coffee and musical conversations, for a few gigs this month including their Thursday, Oct. 17, concert at St. Cecilia, where tickets remain available. And don’t be surprised if their short reunion is only a prelude to another recording session.
Julian Lage. (Supplied)
“After the (2013) record, over the years, we find ourselves together every so often,” Lage said to WKTV in a telephone interview late last month. “It is one of those things that is somewhat unschedulable — I can relate, given what we’ve been up to. But it still remains a passion of ours.
“Frankly, we’ve been toying with this idea of recording again, doing some more shows, for a while. This upcoming run we have coming up (in October) … is kind of an opportunity to initiate some more stuff together. … I think we are just kind of moving towards, God wiling, doing some more stuff.”
Hersch, additionally, sees the pair’s current and, hopefully, future work together as part of a long relationship.
“I put this in the class of on-going special projects,” Hersch said to WKTV. “Julian is really busy with his own career and other projects. So am I. So sometimes it is complicated to find, like, three three great dates in a row. … But I think this is something we plan to keep going, indefinitely. As long as both of us has our brains and our fingers.”
The pair’s musical knowledge and manual dexterity, together and in their “other projects,” have gained them praise, awards and audience applause.
Fred Hersch. (Supplied/Vincent Soyez)
Hersch has 14 Grammy nominations to his credit and, citing only some of his recent distinctions, he was named a 2016 Doris Duke Artist, and was the 2016 and 2018 Jazz Pianist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association. The New York Times Sunday Magazine called him “singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of individualistic jazz — a jazz for the 21st century.”
Lage, who is also Grammy nominated, has placed his own mark on music written by a wide range of artists, from Roy Orbison to Ornette Coleman, and, according to supplied information, he “builds upon a wandering sonic outlook with jazz fusion, jam band liberation, standards, and rock ‘n’ roll.”
While the pair seldom play together, let alone in the duo format, their preparation for a concert such as the one in Grand Rapids is mostly a matter of shared musical language, as jazz people like to say.
“Julian lives in Brooklyn and I live in lower Manhattan, and we did play together this past May, on an on-going series where we play at the Jazz Standard (New York City club) where I invite a different partner each night of the week to come play with me,” Hersch said. “That was sort of our preparation. … We plan to meet in Grand Rapids, have a sound check and we have a pretty good sized repertoire, for now, which we keep adding to as well can. But it’s not really a rehearsal intensive process.”
While both have ventured in others realms, musically, they consider themselves to be jazz players at heart and in their soul.
“I consider my self a bonafide jazz guitar player, you know, and I think the definition of what it means to be a jazz musician is often wider than what we think,” Lage said. “At the end of the day, I kind of play the same all the time, I don’t really change … but my allegiance is to jazz.”
“Both of us believe that whatever piece we are playing, we are not only authentic to our own voices, as musicians, but authentic to that piece of music,” Hersch added. “Each piece of music you play might bring out the different influences, but Julian has a very distinctive voice, in the music. I think I have a very distinctive voice. So we are kind of speaking with our own accents but obviously affected by the particular material we play.”
Playing in a piano-guitar duo, sans drums and bass, is also a chance for Hersch to more fully utilize his keyboard, he admits.
“In jazz, the piano is a member of the percussion family. When I’m playing, I’m playing like a big drum set with 88 notes,” Hersch said. “I can create a lot of sound and play very orchestral. I can play in different registers with the piano. Julian and I have this great radar where it seems like whenever Julian is playing, even while I’m for all intents and purposes soloing, whatever he plays is adding to what I’m doing, not getting in the way.
“In order to work in a duo, whether it is piano-guitar, piano and saxophone, piano and voice, everybody has to have a great responsibility for the rhythm. … Both people have to have good understanding of where the beat is, where the time is … and so, (if we have that) we really don’t miss the bass and drums at all. Frankly it is very liberating.”
Tickets for Fred Hersch and Julian Lage are $40 and $45 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org. A pre-concert reception for $15 at 6:30 p.m., with wine and hors d’oeuvres, is available by reservation in advance (by Friday, October 11). A post-concert party with dessert, coffee and wine is open to all ticket-holders to meet the artists, obtain autographs and CD purchases.
GVSU’s annual Shakespeare Festival returns this weekend featuring one of the Bard’s most famous comedies “A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” Roger Ellis directs the production that centers around four young lovers who leave Athens due to a law that requires a daughter to marry the wrong man or die. The group ends up in the lair of some fairies who decide to have some fun with them and a group of bumbling actors. Opening night is Friday Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. with shows running this weekend and next.
Music for the Soul
Shayna Steele joins the Grand Rapids Symphony for the “Queens of Soul.” (Supplied)
The Grand Rapids Pops pays tribute to the voices that revolutionized rock and revitalized R&B with Queens of Soul on Sept. 27-29 in DeVos Performance Hall, 303 Monroe Ave. NW, to open the 2019-2020 Fox Motors Pops series. Special guest vocalists Shayna Steele, Kelly Levesque and Brie Cassil will be joining the Grand Rapids Symphony for such songs as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary,” and Patti LaBelle’s “New Attitude.” Tickets start at $18 for adults and $5 for students. Visit grsymphony.org.
Lending Your Voice
WKTV Managing Editor Joanne Bailey-Boorsma with St. Cecilia Music Center Executive Director Cathy Holbrook. (WKTV)
St. Cecilia Music Center kicks of its season on Oct. 3 when country and folk singer Lee Ann Womack visits Grand Rapids. Or you could wait until Oct. 20 for when Judy Collins makes her way to the the facility located on 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Better yet, just visit scmc-online.org to check out the full St. Cecilia Music Center season, which includes a classical, jazz and folk. Want a few more hints? How about Rosanne Cash Feb. 19. For more, list to the Locally Entertaining podcast.
Fun Fact: Country Royalty
Since Rosanne Cash is coming to Grand Rapids (in February), we could not resist digging into her family past. Most people know Rosanne is the daughter of country legend Johnny Cash. Her mother was June Carter Cash, who was the daughter of Maybelle Carter. Maybelle was one third of The Carter Family, which also included A.P. Carter and his wife Sara. The Carter Family is considering the first family of country music.
Lee Ann Womack will bring her six Country Music Association Awards, five Academy of Country Music Awards and a Grammy with her when she kicks off St. Cecilia Music Center’s Acoustic Café Folk Series concerts with a show Thursday, Oct. 3.
Okay, she won’t actually bring the Grammy to the stage, but she will bring her guitar and music from her latest album ‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone’.
The show begins a folk music series which includes the legendary Judy Collins later in the month, on Oct. 20, and then a packed February 2020 lineup with Grammy-award winning bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters on Feb. 6; multiple Grammy-award winner Rosanne Cash with guest-musician/composer/husband John Leventhal — maybe the folk series show of the year — on Feb. 19; multi-Grammy-award winner Chris Thile (a member of Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek) on Feb. 25; and guitarist and singer Raul Midón on Feb. 27.
Tickets for Womack and all folk music series shows are still available.
“We are so excited to kick off our new season with Lee Ann Womack, one of the best-known female country singers,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia Music Center executive director, said in supplied material. “From her popular earlier hits like, ‘I Hope You Dance’ to the powerful new rootsy selections from her latest album ‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone,’ those who come to this concert will see how Lee Ann masterfully captures her audience with her beautiful voice, presence and skillful execution.”
Lee Ann Womack has performed award-winning duets with everyone from Willie Nelson, John Prine to John Legend.
Her latest album ‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone’ has transformed her sound back to her “roots,” the East Texas native said in supplied material. “I could never shake my center of who I was. I’m drawn to rootsy music. It’s what moves me.”
Tickets to Lee Ann Womack and all St. Cecilia shows are available by calling 616-459-2224 or visiting St. Cecilia Music Center at 24 Ransom NE, Grand Rapids, 49503 or online here. The Oct. 3 concert with Womack begins at 7:30 p.m. and includes a post-concert party with wine and beer for all concert ticket holders.
Rosanne Cash and her husband, musician/composer John Leventhal in concert. (Supplied by the artist)
By K.D. Norris ken@wktv.org
The pending arrival of September means the busy October beginning of St. Cecilia Music Center’s 2019-20 concert season is just a few weeks away. And while the impressive Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and jazz series lineups have been set and on sale for months, there have been two recent additions the Acoustic Café Folk Series you might have missed.
The Infamous Stringdusters. (Supplied/Aaron Farrington)
After a busy October for the folk series — with Lee Ann Womack opening the fall season on Oct. 3 followed by an encore visit by Judy Collins on Oct. 20 — the folk series has added nights with The Infamous Stringdusters and Rosanne Cash to an already busy February 2020 folk feast on the Royce Auditorium stage.
After the Stringdusters on Feb. 6 and Cash on Feb. 20, Chris Thile will visit on Feb. 25 and Raul Midón on Feb. 27 — and doesn’t a night of folk music sound perfect for a midwinter escape from the weather?
St. Cecilia also says “additional folk series concerts may be announced for the 2019/2020 season.”
While the Stringdusters are a good get for St. Cecilia, the addition of Rosanne Cash is a sure sell-out.
“We are delighted to feature Rosanne Cash and her husband, musician/composer John Leventhal in concert,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia Music Center executive director, said in supplied material. “With both of their many achievements and personal work together, this will be a very special evening.”
Cash is touring in support of her most recent release, “She Remembers Everything”, which is described as “a poetic, lush and soulful collection of songs of personal songwriting and reflection.”
Rosanne Cash (Supplied by the artist)
“There is a woman’s real life, complex experiences and layered understanding, in these songs,” Cash said in supplied material. “I could not have written them 10 years ago …time is shorter, I have more to say.”
“She Remembers Everything” was produced by collaborator and husband Leventhal and Tucker Martine (who has worked with The Decembrists, My Morning Jacket, Mavis Staples, Neko Case).
One of the country’s pre-eminent singer/songwriters, Cash has released 15 albums of that have earned 4 Grammy Awards and 11 nominations, as well as 21 top 40 hits, including 11 No. 1 singles. In 2015, she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. She also currently writing the lyrics for a musical “Norma Rae” with Leventhal serving as composer and John Weidman as book writer. (More about the artist at rosannecash.com .)
In addition to the folk series, the jazz series will open in October as well, with Fred Hersch featuring special guest Julian Lage coming on Oct. 17, followed in the new year by Emmet Cohen’s Master Legacy Series featuring Benny Golson on Jan. 16, Luciana Souza on March 5, and The Clayton Brothers — a must-hear for jazz fans — on April 16.
We will have to wait for November for St. Cecilia to raise the curtains on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center series, with a program titled “Great Innovators” on Nov. 21. The final two concerts will be “French Enchantment” on Jan. 23 and “From Prague to Vienna” on April 30.
Tickets to all shows are still available and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org. Many concerts have a post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party with a cash bar will be offered to all ticket-holders.
Opera Grand Rapids presents tenor Zach Borichevsky in the role of Alfredo in the June 14 & 15 production of Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, at St. Cecilia Music Center. The heartbreaking true story of Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis, La Traviata is one of the greatest operas of all time. The classic novella inspired the films, Camille, Pretty Woman and Moulin Rouge. Buy tickets here.
Below, Mr. Borichevsky shares some more details about himself and his life on and off the stage.
Where are you originally from?
Suburban Philadelphia, PA
Who has inspired you/been your greatest influence professionally? Why?
Pavarotti is a cliché answer, but he’s the finest vocal technician I’ve ever heard, while also being deeply, yet simply expressive.
Who/what brought you into the world of Opera?
Actually, Andrea Bocelli was my gateway singer—I sang his hit “Con te partirò” in a church basement at age 12 or so.
Where do you live now?
Near Tarrytown, NY, just north of NYC
What are your hobbies when not performing?
I’ve always been a bit of a political junkie (double majored in music and political science), but when I’m not reading or listening to every last piece of wonky policy journalism, I’m keeping up with the Philadelphia Phillies, who are looking formidable in 2019.
What is your favorite Role/Opera/Piece?
Has to be Rodolfo in La bohème.
What are your favorite things about being a professional musician?
Endless variety, yet comforting rituals remain between gigs. Working with new and old brilliant pianist friends, working with an orchestra for the first time, meeting new singer colleagues and seeing old friends after a long absence.
Least favorite?
Long absences from home (will be home a total of 100 days this year)
Where is your favorite place to travel/perform? Why?
Santa Fe is a beautiful place to spend a summer—both my summers there have been restorative (and I got engaged there!).
What performances/plans do you have in the next year?
I’ll be singing with Washington National Opera in the fall and very excited to sing in Rigoletto with my wife in both Nashville and Colorado in the spring/summer.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Artists Series co-artistic directors and chamber music power couple Wu Han and David Finckel (on cello) will be on the same stage this season. (Courtesy St. Cecilia/Tara Helen O’Connor)
By K.D. Norris ken@wktv.org
West Michigan jazz and Americana/folk fans — and I count myself in that crowd — eagerly await the early summer announcement of St. Cecilia Music Center’s next concert music series, which came down Tuesday with its 2019-20 season line-up.
Judy Collins (Supplied)
And with a Spectacular Jazz Series that includes the The Clayton Brothers Quintet and an Acoustic Café Folk Series featuring the return of the incomparable Judy Collins, both live up to the center’s reputation.
But, truth be told, the concert of the season will be one of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Artists Series, as CMS co-artistic directors and chamber music power couple Wu Han (on piano) and David Finckel (on cello) come to town together on a program titled “From Prague to Vienna” but maybe more appropriately called “From New York City, with Love.”
Performing with violinist Arnaud Sussman and violist Paul Neubauer, Wu Hann and Finckel will perform in a concert which “celebrates friendship and family with three composers who mentored and inspired each other: Brahms, Dvořák and Suk,” according to supplied material. “Brahms discovered Dvořák through a composition competition and helped him rise to international stardom, and became his lifelong friend and mentor. In turn, Suk was one of Dvořák’s favorite students and eventually became his son-in-law.”
Of course, seeing and hearing Wu Hann and Finckel perform together is worth the price of admission whatever the program.
While fans can pick their favorites, St. Cecilia executive director Cathy Holbrook shows no such favoritism.
Cathy Holbrook St. Cecilia (WKTV/K.D. Norris)
“We are so excited about all of our concerts and the amazing artists coming to Grand Rapids to perform at SCMC this coming season,” Holbrook said in supplied material. “We’re happy to have three great series that appeal to everyone’s interests in music. The exquisite sound and intimate setting of the Royce Auditorium makes these chosen concerts at SCMC one-of-a-kind.”
Tickets are now on sale for all announced concerts including opening folk series concerts by Lee Ann Womack on Oct. 3 and Judy Collins on Oct. 20; the jazz series opener of Fred Hersch featuring special guest Julian Lage on Oct. 17; and “Great Innovators” – works by Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Smetana, on Nov. 21, to launch the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Series.
The chamber music series will continue with “French Enchantment” on Jan. 23, 2020, featuring the elegant works of Ravel, Fauré and Saint-Saëns; followed by the aforementioned “From Prague to Vienna” on April 30, 2020.
The Clayton Brothers. (Supplied by the artists)
The jazz series, after the Hersch/Lage pairing, will include Emmet Cohen’s Master Legacy Series featuring Ron Carter on Jan. 16, 2020; vocalist Luciana Souza on March 5, 2020; and The Clayton Brothers Quintet on April 16, 2020.
The folk series, after Ms. Womack’s and Ms. Collins’ visits, will continue with multi-Grammy Award winner Chris Thile on Feb. 25, 2020, immediately followed by “eclectic adventurist” singer/ guitarist Raul Midón on Feb. 27. (And, as in past seasons, additional Acoustic Café Series concerts will be announced at a later date.)
Season subscription tickets to the 2019-2020 Spectacular Jazz Series and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Concert Series are now available by calling 616-459-2224, visiting St. Cecilia Music Center at 24 Ransom NE, Grand Rapids, or online for new subscribers at scmc-online.org. Single tickets to chamber, jazz, and folk concerts are also on sale now and can be purchased by phone or online at the same.
For each concert, a post-concert party is open to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to possibly meet the artists and obtain signed CDs of their releases. There will also be pre-concert receptions for the CMS of Lincoln Center concerts and the Jazz Series concerts featuring wine and hors d’oeuvres for $15 per person.
The Jazz Band, directed by Paul Brewer, in rehearsal for its coming concert. (Supplied/St. Cecilia Music Center)
By K.D. Norris ken@wktv.org
Improvisational jazz music is not for everyone, especially young musicians learning their craft. But it is challenging and rewarding for the youth who make up the St. Cecilia Music Center’s Youth Jazz Ensembles — including several local players from East Kentwood High School.
The public can get a reward of their own this weekend as those young players will be on stage at St. Cecilia during the center’s Youth Jazz Ensembles Concert, a free, public event scheduled for Sunday, May 19, at 7 p.m.
Both the small Jazz Combo group and the Jazz Band big band will be on stage, and both will showcase the developing talent of their young players.
Mitchell Arganbright is a student at East Kentwood High School and a member of the Jazz Band. (Supplied/St. Cecilia Music Center)
“The combo format has a lot of potential for learning because every aspect of musicianship is involved: sight-reading, learning by ear, music theory (chord structures, keys, form), improvisation, arranging,” Robin Connell, St. Cecilia Jazz Combo director and local musician, said in an email to WKTV. “The big band music is all written and presents challenging reading for most students. They also work on blend, balance, intonation, and style.”
While the combo format focuses more on the traditional improvisational aspects of jazz, Connell said the big band is more structured but has “improvised parts (that) are only for a selected few instruments within an arrangement that is otherwise all written out.”
The current Jazz Combo has five members, Connell said: piano, bass, drums, saxophone and two trombones.
“The combo learns jazz standards and, in the process, learns a lot about music and jazz,” Connell said. “They learn the tunes from a ‘lead sheet’ (melody and chord symbols without any intro/ending or arrangement). Then we put an arrangement together. We start the year with me giving all the direction but, by the end, I’ve encouraged them to take over the leadership and direction as they are able.”
The combo members range in age from 12 to 16 (four are in middle school), and they will play four tunes: “Listen Here” by Eddie Harris, “Moanin’ ” by Bobby Timmons, “Artherdoc Blues” by Jimmy Heath, and “So What” by Miles Davis.
The Jazz Band, directed by Paul Brewer, has the standard instrumentation, Connell said: five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets, with piano, bass and drums — “But I will be playing piano with the band because he doesn’t have a student pianist.”
The Jazz Band are all high school kids, with half a dozen from East Kentwood high. Their program will be published pieces arranged for this instrumentation, but specifics are not known at this time.
Artists who will perform include pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Cho-Liang Lin, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist Jakob Koranyi, and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois. (Supplied/SCMC)
By WKTV Staff ken@wktv.org
St. Cecilia Music Center’s 135th Anniversary Season will take a curtain call April 25 as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will be on stage with a program titled “From Mendelssohn” — works by the brilliant composer and other artists who admired him, namely Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
Artists from CMS who will perform include pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Cho-Liang Lin, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist Jakob Koranyi, and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois.
St. Cecilia executive director Cathy Holbrook. (WKTV)
“The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is amazing to watch with artistry that is always flawless,” St. Cecilia executive director Cathy Holbrook said in supplied material. “It is appropriate that we end this season with them to celebrate of our 135th Anniversary.
“The nine women who began St. Cecilia Music Society, over a century ago, created a vision. That vision remains our mission today: ‘To promote the study, appreciation and performance of music in order to enrich the lives of West Michigan residents.’ We’re excited to honor these inspiring women at our final event for the season with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.”
St. Cecilia Music Center was founded in 1883 by nine Grand Rapids women. At that time it was the only organization of its kind to be run solely by women. Through their efforts, SCMC’s historic building on Ransom Avenue was erected in 1894.
About the concert
St. Cecilia, in supplied material about the concert, states: “Mendelssohn’s combined mastery of melody, form, counterpoint, and the chamber idiom was admired and imitated by composers for generations to come.
“In a program bookended by two works of Mendelssohn from 1845, one brief, the other epic, we hear Mendelssohn’s close friend Robert Schumann’s response to Mendelssohn’s piano trios; how, near the end of his life, Brahms recalled Mendelssohn’s lyricism through the viola’s dark voice; and, how Mendelssohn’s great admirer Tchaikovsky combined the German’s signature scherzo idiom with Russian melancholy and splendor in three selections from The Seasons for solo piano.”
The specific selections will include: Mendelssohn: Lied ohne Wortein D major for Cello and Piano, Op. 109 (1845); Schumann: Märchenerzählungenfor Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, Op. 132 (1853); Brahms: Sonata in E-flat major for Viola and Piano, Op. 120, No. 2 – composed 1894; Tchaikovsky: Selections from Les saisonsfor Piano, Op. 37 (1875-1876); and Mendelssohn:Trio No. 2 in C minor for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 66 (1845).
Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. concert on April 25 are $45 and $40 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org.
A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party, with complimentary wine will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists and to obtain signed CDs of their releases.
Classical music counts Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Gustav Mahler as among the greatest composers in history.
But Mozart and Mendelssohn both had sisters who also were talented musicians and composers. Same for the women that both Schumann and Mahler married. But music by Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler are little known. What music Marianne Mozart may have written has been lost. All we know of music composed by Mozart’s sister, nicknamed “Nannerl,” is an occasional mention in her younger brother’s letters.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that female composers entered the limelight.
Associate Conductor John Varineau leads the Grand Rapids Symphony in music that shattered glass ceilings, composed by pioneering women who broke new ground and blazed new trails in music.
The 8 p.m. concert in St. Cecilia Music Center welcomes back to Grand Rapids trombonist Ava Ordman, who formerly spent 24 seasons as principal trombonist of the Grand Rapids Symphony in the early 1970s through the late 1990s.
A part of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s PwC Great Eras series, the concert features music by American composers Ruth Crawford Seeger and Joan Tower and by British composer Anna Clyne, three women whose careers spanned more than a century from the early 20th century to the present.
Highlights of the evening concert will be given at 10 a.m. on Friday May 3 as The 20th/21st Century Coffee Concert. Part of the Porter Hills Coffee Classic series, the one-hour program is held without intermission. Doors open at 9 a.m. for complementary coffee and pastry.
The program is part of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s efforts to highlight the work of contemporary composers as well as to draw attention to the work of overlooked composers. Next season, one of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s Great Eras Series concerts will feature music by Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann in March 2020.
“The Grand Rapids Symphony is such a wonderful symphony, and we really do have something for everyone,” said Music Director Marcelo Lehninger about the concert.
Each of the three featured female composers shattered the glass ceiling in her own way.
In the first half of the 20th century, Ruth Crawford Seeger, a folk music specialist as well as a composer, became the first female composer in history to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930. Though Seeger’s compositions included several modernist works that would inspire important composers throughout the 20th century, the Grand Rapids Symphony will perform two works by her, including “Rissolty Rossolty,” a fantasy for orchestra based on American folk tunes.
Joan Tower, who turned 80 last September, in 1990 became the first woman in history to win the Grawemeyer Awardfor composition, a prize worth $100,000 today. Tower’s composition “Made in America,” which uses snippets of “America the Beautiful,” won her the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition plus two more Grammys for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Classical Album for the recording made by the Nashville Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Grand Rapids Symphony will perform her work titled “Chamber Dance.”
Anna Clyne, a British-born composer, now based in the United States, is a winner of the 2010 Charles Ives Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2016 Hindemith Prize. Her double violin concerto, “Prince of Clouds,” was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Grand Rapids Symphony will perform her piece titled “Within Her Arms.”
The fourth work on the program, co-commissioned by the Grand Rapids Symphony, is titled “Their Eyes Are Fireflies”Composer David Biedenbender wrote it for Ordman, who today is a professor of music at Michigan State University.
Ava Ordman, who became principal trombonist of the Grand Rapids Symphony in 1974, is the only woman to hold a principal or assistant principal chair in the orchestra’s brass section since the Grand Rapids Symphony began the transition to a fully professional orchestra in the early 1970s.
She has given the world premieres of several works including Steven Smith’s Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra with the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, and Libby Larsen’s “Mary Cassatt” with the Grand Rapids Symphony. Together with the Grand Rapids Symphony, Ordman recorded Donald Erb’s Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra for a CD released by Koss Classics in 1995.
Ordman has performed regularly with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra, with the Cabrillo Music Festival in California, with the Western Brass Quintet at Western Michigan University and with the American Classic Trombone Quartet.
Tickets start at $26 for the Great Eras series and $16 for Coffee Classics and are available at the Grand Rapids Symphony box office, weekdays 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across the street from Calder Plaza). Call (616) 454-9451 x 4 to order by phone. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum).
Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 am – 6 pm or on the day of the concert at the venue beginning two hours before the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.
Asleep at the Wheel’s current line-up is a mix o f founding members and new faces. (Supplied)
By St. Cecilia Music Center
St. Cecilia Music Center (SCMC) has added another concert to their 2018-19 Acoustic Café Folk series. Asleep at the Wheel, 10 GRAMMY Award winners with more than 25 studio and live albums to their 48-year history, will perform on April 11, 2019. Don’t miss out — get your tickets today.
The band will return to St. Cecilia with a new recording in their playlist. New Routes marks both a new path forward and a nod to the freewheeling roots of one of Texas’ most beloved bands.
After a decade of collaborating on records with friends, including Willie Nelson on 2009’s Willie and the Wheel, and paying ongoing tribute to the groundbreaking music of Western Swing pioneer Bob Wills, the Wheel is marking 2018 with their first album of new material in a decade.
With a fresh lineup, a bracing blend of original songs and vibrant cover material and some unanticipated new musical tangents, Asleep at the Wheel demonstrates convincingly it’s more relevant, enjoyable and musically nimble than any time in its 45-year history.
“It took me 60 years, but I’m doing what I’m meant to do—singing and playing and writing better than I ever have. A bandleader is just someone who gathers people around them to play the best music they can play. The idea is to feature everyone in the band,” founder Ray Benson says.
SCMC Executive Director Cathy Holbrook added, “We are so happy to bring Asleep at the Wheel back to Grand Rapids. They have a great loyal following and their new music will be highly anticipated by an eager crowd.”
Concert tickets for Asleep at the Wheel are $43 and $38. All concert tickets can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online here.
A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party, with complimentary wine and beer from the folk series sponsor Greyline Brewing, will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists and to obtain signed CDs of their releases.
Coming up: Guitarist Leo Kottke will return to SCMC on April 18, 2019. Over his many years of writing and performing, Kottke has composed scores for film soundtracks, children’s shows, and a symphony, as well as, released many albums. Focusing primarily on instrumental composition and playing, Kottke also sings sporadically, in an unconventional yet expressive baritone. In concert, Kottke intersperses humorous and monologues with vocal and instrumental selections played solo on his 6- and 12-string guitars.
Pianist Wu Han, violinists Arnaud Sussman and Alexander Sitkovetsky, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis. (Supplied/St. Cecilia)
By WKTV Staff ken@wktv.org
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center returns to St. Cecilia Music Center on Thursday, March 14, in a program entitled “Russian Mastery” and featuring works by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Arensky. The Chamber Music Society artists who will perform include co-artistic director and pianist Wu Han, violinists Arnaud Sussman and Alexander Sitkovetsky, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis.
“Every concert at SCMC performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is amazing to watch with artistry that is always flawless,” SCMC executive director Cathy Holbrook said in supplied material. “We are so lucky to have these brilliant musicians take the stage in Royce Auditorium. … We are also very excited to have Wu Han … back to provide background on some of the wonderful music they will be performing.”
According to supplied material, “Russia’s vastly expressive music over time has told the story of its country and people, painting a picture through music of its turbulent historical landscape. Specifically, the Prokofiev Two Violin Sonata, written in 1932, stands apart as an audaciously creative work from the period between World War I and World War II, while the remaining works will be glorious musical outpourings of the age of the Tsars and the Russian Empire.”
The selections to be performed include: Trio élégiaque in G minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello — Sergei Rachmaninov, composer; Souvenir d’un lieu cherfor Violin and Piano, Op. 42 — Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer; Sonata in C major for Two Violins, Op. 56 — Sergei Prokofiev, composer; Romance and Oriental Dance for Cello and Piano — Sergei Rachmaninov, composer; and Trio No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 32 — Anton Arensky, composer.
The final CMS of Lincoln Center concert for this season will take place April 25, titled From Mendelssohn” will feature works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
Tickets for the March 14 and April 25 concerts are $45 and $40 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org.
A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party, with complimentary wine will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists and to obtain signed CDs of their releases.
They say that folk music is at it best where its played by family about real people. If that is true — and the musical proof of such things is in the listening — than Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn’s late-2018 recording of two songs for a video by renowned dance company Pilobolus may well be the art of folk music at its perfection.
The musical evidence will likely be heard Saturday, Feb. 9, as the husband and wife duo, both accomplished and innovative banjo artists, return to St. Cecilia Music Center’s Royce Auditorium for an Acoustic Café Folk Series concert.
Tickets are still available.
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn. (Supplied/Courtesy of the Artists)
In fall 2017, Fleck and Washburn released their second full-length studio album together, “Echo In The Valley”, an 11-track LP includes the two banjo players playing folk and bluegrass music. In October of last year, the duo released a new single that married two songs from that album, which also is the soundtrack for the Pilobolus music video.
The new single and video pairs “Come All You Coal Miners” — written by Sarah Ogan Gunning, an Appalachian ballad singer, activist and wife of a coal miner — with Fleck and Washburn’s own “Take Me to Harlan.”
Fleck and Washburn, who have been called “the king and queen of the banjo”, return to St. Cecilia after a sold-out concert midwinter in 2018.
“Béla and Abigail are two of the most delightful and gracious musicians we’ve hosted in concert,” Cathy Holbrook, executive director of St. Cecilia, said in supplied material. “Their warmth and love of music reflects in their amazing show.”
Fleck is a 15-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the instrument across multiple genres, and, according to supplied material, Washburn is a singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjo player who re-radicalized it by combining it with Far East culture and sounds. “Echo in the Valley” is the follow up to Fleck and Washburn’s self-titled debut that earned the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album.
“The mission of ‘Echo in the Valley’ was to take our double banjo combination of three finger and clawhammer styles to the next level and find things to do together that we had not done before,” Fleck said in supplied material. “We’re expressing different emotions through past techniques and going to deeper places.”
Acoustic Café Folk Series remaining concerts
The Acoustic Café Series, in partnership with the syndicated radio show of the same name, features five remaining folk concerts this season. Following Fleck and Washburn are: The War and Treaty, on Sunday, on Feb. 24; The Milk Carton Kids, on Thursday, Feb. 28; Asleep at the Wheel, on Thursday, April 11; and guitar master Leo Kottke on Thursday, April 18.
Tickets for Fleck and Washburn
Fleck and Washburn concert tickets are $45 and $50 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org. A post-concert party with complimentary wine and scmc-online.org beer bar is offered to all ticket-holders. All ticket prices include service fees and no additional fees are charged.
Joey DeFrancesco having fun in concert. (JoeyDefracesco.com)
By K.D. Norris ken@wktv.org
In publicity material for Van Morrison’s 2018 all-jazzed up release “You’re Driving Me Crazy” his partner in musical crime is listed at “Hammond hero” Joey DeFrancesco. Maybe the nickname is a little bit of Morrison’s infamous Irish humor and maybe it is simply stating the obvious.
Either way, DeFrancesco and his Hammond heroics will be on full display when St. Cecilia Music Center bring multi-talented, multi-Grammy nominated jazz man and his quartet “The People” to Grand Rapids on Thursday, Feb. 7.
Tickets are still available.
DeFrancesco is a four-time Grammy Award nominee, with more than 30 recordings as a leader under his belt. He has received countless jazz awards including being inducted into the inaugural Hammond B3 Organ Hall of Fame in 2014, as well as being named the top organ player in the Critics Polls in DownBeat Magazine 11 times over the past 15 years and the Readers Polls every year since 2005.
That certainly qualifies as being a “Hammond hero.”
Accompanying DeFrancesco at St. Cecilia will be his group — known as “The People”, and including drummer Michael Ode, guitarist Dan Wilson and saxophonist Troy Roberts. And Joey may well also break out his trumpet and singing voice during the show.
“Joey DeFrancesco and “The People” … is bound to have guests swinging in their seats,” Cathy Holbrook, SCMC executive director, said in supplied material. “Their amazing jazz, blues, soul sound will really speak to the hearts of true jazz lovers and it’s something different then we have featured in the past with Joey on the Hammond B3 Organ.”
DeFrancesco’s latest Grammy nomination was with “The People”, in 2017 for “Project Freedom”, an album that features DeFrancesco on the Hammond B-3 organ, along with contributions on keyboards, trumpet and as a vocalist. “Project Freedom” includes originals by DeFrancesco and covers of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” and John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
DeFrancesco is no stranger to a little genre bouncing, and in 2018 he teamed up with Van Morrison on Morrison’s hard-driving soul-jazz sounding 2018 album titled “You’re Driving Me Crazy”. The album included Morrison, JDeFrancesco, Wilson, Roberts and Ode.
Joey DeFrancesco, in brief
Joey DeFrancesco (Jay Gilbert)
DeFrancesco was raised in Philadelphia where his musical roots in jazz, blues and other musical art forms were born, according to his website bio. The son of “Papa” John DeFrancesco, an organist himself, the younger DeFrancesco remembers playing as early as four-years-old. Soon after, his father began bringing him to gigs in Philadelphia, sitting in with legendary players like Hank Mobley and Philly Joe Jones.
Some argue that DeFrancesco’s emergence in the 1980s marked the onset of a musical renaissance as organ jazz had all but gone out of vogue from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s “until DeFrancesco reignited the flame with his vintage Hammond organ and Leslie speaker cabinet.”
DeFrancesco has recorded and toured with his own groups as well as musical whose who names such as Ray Charles, Diana Krall, Nancy Wilson, George Benson, James Moody, John Scofield, Bobby Hutcherson, Jimmy Cobb, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell and David Sanborn.
He currently also hosts a weekly program on SiriusXM Radio’s Real Jazz channel, fittingly called “Organized.”
Tickets for Joey DeFrancesco and “The People” are $35 and $40 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org .
A pre-concert reception for $15 begins at 6:30 pm, including wine and hors d’oeuvres, is available by reservation in advance by calling the center. A post-concert party with dessert, coffee and wine is open to all ticket-holders to meet the artists, obtain autographs and CD purchases.
The final St. Cecilia Jazz Series Concert will be on March 7 and will feature rising jazz star singer Veronica Swift and the Benny Green Trio.
St. Cecilia Music Center’s School of Music youth jazz program performance with Robin Connell conducting, from 2017. (Supplied/St. Cecilia Music Center)
By WKTV Staff ken@wktv.org
St. Cecilia Music Center’s School of Music offers a variety of music education for West Michigan youth of all ages and adults, and this month there will be a series of concerts featuring the students starting this week.
On Saturday, Jan. 12, the school will hold its winter mid-season concerts for the three youth orchestras in School of Music. All performances are held in Royce Auditorium at St. Cecilia Music Center.
The Sinfonia and Concert Orchestra concert will be at 5 p.m., with the Philharmonic concert at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for each concert are $12 per person (age 10-and-under are free).
The Philharmonic is an advanced orchestra, complete with strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion, playing challenging works from classical, musical and film scores. The Concert Orchestra is a preparatory string ensemble for intermediate students with moderate ensemble experience. Sinfonia is an advanced entry-level string orchestra introducing beginners to the elements of teamwork and ensemble performance.
Later in the month there will be concerts featuring the the Concert Band and Jazz ensembles on Friday, Jan. 18, at 7 p.m. Tickets are also $12 per person (and 10-and-under free).
According to supplied information, as part of the School of Music “students receive high-quality music training and performance opportunities from the region’s top instrumental educators. Young musicians begin to cultivate a lifelong appreciation for music in a nurturing and supportive environment. Ensembles are comprised of talented musicians from across the region, allowing them to learn not only from their teachers, but from one another. They are introduced to diverse musical literature, including pieces from the classical canon and more contemporary modern works.”
For more information about the School of Music offerings visit SCMC-online.org . Tickets to the concerts are available through this link and through the Box Office at 616-459-2224. St. Cecilia Music Center is located at 24 Ransom NE, Grand Rapids.
The number 89 is considered mundane by some, being the number before the major milestone of 90. Yet according to numerology, 89 is a building number. It s known to build large structures that benefit society and that endure for a longtime, such as the Grand Rapids Symphony.
The Grand Rapids Symphony officially organized on Jan. 11, 1930, making it 89 in 2019. Coincidentally, the Symphony has a concert performance on Jan. 11. So to celebrate its 89th birthday, one of the featured pieces is Hayden’s Symphony No. 89.
“Former Music Director David Lockington started the tradition years ago,” said Grand Rapids Symphony Senior Manager of Communications and Media Relations Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk of celebrating the symphony’s anniversary with a classical piece that has the correlating number. Kaczmarczyk said the Symphony started the tradition around its 75th anniversary, which was in 2004-2005 and has been following it, on and off, for the past 14 years.
The Jan. 11 concert is part of the Symphony’s PwC Great Eras series and is titled The Classical Concert: Viennese Masters. The performance, which also include, Beethoven’s “Creatures of Prometheus” and Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, will be at 8 p.m. at St. Cecilia Music Center’s Royce Auditorium, 24 Ransom Ave. NE.
In the late 18th Century, Vienna was the capital city of the music world with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven all living and working there during their careers. Haydn was a mentor to both Beethoven, who studied briefly with the composer, and Mozart, who learned so much for Haydn that Mozart eventually dedicated six ring quartets to his mentor.
GRS Music Director Marcelo Lehninger will lead the Grand Rapids Symphony in the Jan. 11 PwC Great Eras Series concert Viennese Masters. (Supplied)
Of course, 89 is still the number before 90, which the Grand Rapids Symphony will mark its 90th season starting this fall and into 2020. Kaczmarczyk said the Symphony will be announcing its 90th season in February and he hopes to have some more interesting and fun information to provide about the organization. Until then, there is still a lot of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s 89th season to enjoy including the film presentations of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” Feb. 1 and 2, and n”Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl,” March 9-11.
Highlights of the The Classical Concert: Viennese Matters will be given at 10 a.m. at St. Cecilia Music Center as part of The Classical Coffee Concert. This is a Porter Hills Coffee Classic series that is a one-hour program held without intermission. Doors open at 9 a.m. for complementary coffee and pastry.
The complete The Classical Concert: Viennese Masters program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio, 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.
Tickets start at $26 for the Great Eras series and $16 for Coffee Classics and are available at the Grand Rapids Symphony box office, weekdays 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100 (located across the street from Calder Plaza). Call 616-454-0451, ext. 4 to order by phone. Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. or on the day of the concert at the venue beginning two hours before the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.
The War and Treaty, featuring Michael and Tanya Trotter, has been added to the St. Cecilia Acoustic Café Folk Series, with the performance set for Feb. 24. (Supplied)
Anybody who attended the recent Bob Seger concert in Grand Rapids already know that The War and Treaty — which opened the Seger show — are worth the price of a ticket all by themselves.
The rest of us will just have to find out for ourselves at St. Cecilia Music Center in February.
St. Cecilia on Monday announced that the band, featuring Michael and Tanya Trotter, has been added to the Acoustic Café Folk Series, with the performance set for Sunday, Feb. 24, at 7:30 p.m.
“The War and Treaty’s Motown sound with soul and folk roots … are a powerful duo who are on the rise and we are excited to feature them,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material.
Tickets for The War and Treaty are now on sale. (Tickets are also still available for this week’s folk series performance by the The Lone Bellow, who will take the St. Cecilia stage Thursday, Nov. 29, at 7:30 p.m.)
The War and Treaty, featuring Michael and Tanya Trotter, sing songs of their lives and of other lives. (Supplied)
The War and Treaty, according to supplied material, “blend roots, folk, gospel, and soul, reaching back through their deep-rooted history to conjure up the strength of their ancestors. Their Down to the River EP (2017) boasts a sound that’s both stirring and sensual, driven by joy, determination, and an unceasing upward gaze.”
Lofty sounding words, but their real life stories provide evidence to the description.
The backstory of the band, and its name apparently, is a story of the separate but now joined musical paths of Michael and Tanya. One found their voice during childhood; the other found it during time of war. And their songs now blend to show life — real life, of real people.
After winning a talent show when she was 13, Tanya knew singing would be her life, her supplied biography states. Growing up in a tight-knit community just outside of Washington, D.C., she had a voice described as “honeyed and bold, guttural but angelic.” She started writing songs young as well, often alone in her room at night.
Michael spent part of his childhood in Cleveland before moving with his mother, brother, and sister to Washington, D.C. The family spent time in and out of homeless shelters – a limbo Michael would experience again as an adult. He was 19 when his first daughter, Michaela, was born, he “joined the Army for her,” he says in his supplied bio. Michael enlisted in the United States Army in 2003.
The musical transformative days, came when he was sent to Iraq, and stationed in one of Saddam Hussein’s ruined palaces. There, he had access to a piano that had emerged miraculously unscathed. An American officer heard him play and sing, and he encouraged Michael to pursue music. When that same officer was killed, Michael sat down to write the first of his many songs, some for other fallen comrades.
When Michael returned home, he was booked on a festival, where he met Tanya Blount. Today, they’re married, with a 6-year-old son, and writing and singing songs that, again, translate life, real life, to the audience.
“You have to have a deep place of love within yourself to be vulnerable,” Tanya said in describing their music. “With The War and Treaty, we allow people to see two people that are not perfect. We get on stage. We sweat. We’re overweight. We yell. We get ugly, we scream! My hair comes loose. We’re vulnerable — naked — in front of people, and it’s a chain reaction. It allows them to be vulnerable, too.”
For more information on The War and Treaty visit their website: thewarandtreaty.com/ .
Tickets for The War and Treaty are $30 and $30. All concert tickets can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party with wine and beer will be offered to all ticket-holders, giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists and to obtain signed CDs of their releases. For more information or to purchase tickets online visit www.scmc-online.org.
The Triiio Tour features the three key members of The Lone Bellow — guitarist/vocalist Zach Williams, guitarist Brian Elmquist, and multi-instrumentalist Kanene Donehey Pipkin — playing in concert as a trio with no back up band.
The Lone Bellow, the band’s hearts and souls anyway, will bring their alt/indie Americana folk sounds to St. Cecilia Music Center’s stage later this month as part of its Acoustic Cafe Folk series with the Royce Auditorium stage set for an unusual but alluring concert focused on the band’s one-mic sounds.
Grand Rapids will, in fact, be among the first cities in the U.S. to feature The Lone Bellow’s Triiio Tour, which not only focuses the band down to its core three but also highlights their new acoustic EP, Restless, released Oct. 19.
And tickets remain available for the Thursday, Nov. 29, show, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. with a post-concert party open to all ticket-holders and giving the audience the opportunity to possibly meet the artists and obtain signed CDs of their releases.
The Triiio Tour features the three key members of The Lone Bellow — guitarist/vocalist Zach Williams, guitarist Brian Elmquist, and multi-instrumentalist Kanene Donehey Pipkin — playing in concert as a trio with no back up band. (Something which experienced fans know from previous live shows where the trio would gather for a couple of songs as part of an intimate acoustic interlude.)
“We are very excited to welcome The Lone Bellow on this special acoustic tour,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material. “SCMC will be the perfect venue for this great band and their acoustic sound.”
The Triiio Tour is also a live presentation of their Restless EP, which features new songs, two covers, and three reworked versions of songs from previous records form the Brooklyn-born, now Nashville-based band.
“Since we released our first album in 2013, we’ve been setting a few songs aside every night to sing together around one mic, and those times have become some of our most memorable musical moments of touring together,” Williams said in supplied material. “We were prompted to make a record that would capture that feeling, and to make it ourselves. We had never done that before. We ended up making it in Jason and Kanene’s attic along with all of the natural sounds of that space: floors creaking, birds chirping, babies crying, lawnmowers running. It was a joy to make.”
The Restless EP was produced by Brian Elmquist and Jason Pipkin. For more information on The Lone Bellow, visit here.
Remaining tickets for The Lone Bellow are $30. All concert tickets can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. For more information or to purchase tickets online visit www.scmc-online.org.
Musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will join to perform Schubert’s “Trout Quintet”. (Supplied)
By St. Cecilia Music Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Series 2018/2019 season begins on Nov. 15, with 5 internationally renowned musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York performing diverse gems from the 19th century as the St. Cecilia Music Center’s chamber music series begins its season with the beloved Schubert composition The Trout Quintet.
Duos and trios will fill the first half of their performance, including Beethoven’s variations on Mozart’s melody, Schubert’s creation for the arpeggione, and Bottesini’s virtuoso showpiece for violin and double bass. The artists join forces after intermission to perform Schubert’s Trout Quintet, which has garnered a reputation as one of the most popular works in the chamber repertory.
A pre-concert artist talk with the visiting musicians begins at 7 p.m. and is open to all ticket holders.
“We are so pleased to renew another three-year agreement with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center,” St. Cecilia executive director Cathy Holbrook said. “They are some of the most exciting artists to experience at SCMC with their exquisite performances and amazing artistry. To listen to and see these artists in action is truly captivating,”
Musicians will include pianist Orion Weiss, violinist Paul Huang, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist Keith Robinson, and double bassist Xavier Foley. New artist Foley is the recipient of a prestigious 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has also won the 2016 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and First Prizes at Astral’s 2014 National Auditions, Sphinx’s 2014 Competition, and the 2011 International Society of Bassists Competition.
Tickets for the November 15 CMS of Lincoln Center concert are $45 and $40. Season tickets for all 3 of the CMS of Lincoln Center concerts are also available for 15-20 percent discount off single ticket prices.
There will be two more chamber music concerts as part of the St. Cecilia series:
A program entitled Russian Mastery, featuring works by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Arensky, on March 14, 2019. Co-artistic Director and pianist Wu Han will return to Grand Rapids with violinists Arnaud Sussman and Alexander Sitkovetsky, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis. Russia’s vastly expressive music over time has told the story of its country and people, painting a picture through music of its turbulent historical landscape. The Prokofiev Two Violin Sonata, written in 1932, stands apart as an audaciously creative work from the period between the wars, while the remaining works will be glorious musical outpourings of the age of the tsars and the Russian Empire.
A program on April 25, 2019 entitled From Mendelssohn, which will feature Mendelssohn works and magnificent artists who admired and emulated his work through some of their own including Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Mendelssohn’s combined mastery of melody, form, counterpoint, and the chamber idiom was admired and imitated by composers for generations. In a program bookended by two works of Mendelssohn from 1845, one brief, the other epic, the audience will hear Mendelssohn’s close friend Robert Schumann’s response to Mendelssohn’s piano trios; how, near the end of his life, Brahms recalled Mendelssohn’s lyricism through the viola’s dark voice; and, finally, how Mendelssohn’s great admirer Tchaikovsky combined the German’s signature scherzo idiom with Russian melancholy and splendor in three selections from The Seasons for solo piano. CMS musicians performing for the final concert of the season will include pianist Inon Barnatan violinist Cho-Liang Lin, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist Jakob Koranyi, and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois.
All concert tickets can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org. A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party, with complimentary wine will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists and to obtain signed CDs of their releases.
It should start with a dark and stormy night as a group of of ghost hunters entered the old creepy house in search of paranormal activity but in truth, outside of a light drizzle, the weather was fairly routine as the Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters joined others at St. Cecilia Music Center for National Ghost Hunting Day earlier this season.
“Our mission statement is directed toward private families although we do investigations like this — plenty of them,” said Wayne Thomas, a member of the Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters. “But we have been to places where the people would not meet us at the house they just purchased because they were not taking their kids back and they were distraught and that’s where our passion for the paranormal comes in.”
The Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters team
The goal for the team is to create a better understanding of the spirits living among us by working with families and individuals dealing with paranormal activity.
“We have a process and we try to stick to that process,” Thomas said. “We have an interview and we have [Pastor Dan Schmidt] there so if there are any sensations in the house. We come back and do the investigation and we do a reveal where we present our evidence and that’s when Dan will ask them do you want a smudge or do you want to learn to live with your ghost.”
From the interview to the smudging, which is a ritual done to help cleanse a dwelling of negative energies, spirits or influences, the process is quite different from what people see on such shows as “Supernatural” or “Ghost Hunters.”
“TV can make it so dramatized, the music, the door slamming and we sit there for hours and hours,” said Grand Rapids Ghost Hunter Tammy Post. And in fact much of the group’s work is not done in the dark because as Thomas puts it, “no one ever sees a ghost in the dark.”
Pastor Dan Schmidt checks out the second floor of the St. Cecilia Music Center.
“We will have gone through a whole night and we won’t know if we have gotten anything at all,” Schmidt said. “We will go back through and watch the video and listen to the recordings and that is the longest part of the process.”
The ultimate goal of the group is to help people better understand the spirits living among us.
“It is easy to see the help you are giving the living – it is not quite as easy to see the help you are giving to the dead,” Thomas said. “When I got into this, I thought ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to help the dead find peace and rest.’
But in truth, Thomas said it is hard to determine if they have helped spirits move on.
“We do start with prayer and we end with prayer as we do consider ourselves a faith-based group,” Thomas said. “I consider all the praying we’ve done helps.”
To reach the Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters, call 616-541-4496 or visit the group’s Facebook page.
Kenny Barron knows his way around the jazz piano keyboard, and he knows his way up to the Grammy Awards stage as well.
Barron has earned 11 Grammy awards, beginning in 1992 for Best Jazz Album with “People Time”, his duet with the legendary Stan Getz, and most recently in 2017 for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
The Kenny Barron Quintet will make their way to the Royce Auditorium stage at St. Cecilia Music Center on Thursday, Nov. 1, for a 7:30 p.m. show. Tickets are still available.
The Los Angles Times has called Barron “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly to call him “The most lyrical piano player of our time”; the first being probably an understatement and the second hard to argue with.
Barron will come to St. Cecilia after releasing his latest recording this year, Blue Note recording titled “Concentric Circles” with his quintet.
Barron’s history of performance sounds like a Who’s Who of the American jazz world.
Kenny Barron will be part of the St. Cecilia Music Center’s 2018-19 season. (Supplied)
Born in 1943 in Philadelphia, while still in high school, Barron worked with drummer Philly Joe Jones and at age 19 he moved to New York City and freelanced with Roy Haynes, Lee Morgan and James Moody. According to his official biography, upon Moody’s recommendation Dizzy Gillespie hired Barron in 1962 without even hearing Baron play. After five years with Dizzy, Barron had played with Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, and Buddy Rich. The early seventies found him working with Yusef Lateef, whom he credits as a key influence in his art for improvisation.
Barron balanced touring with studies and earned his B.A. in Music from Empire State College and then joined the faculty at Rutgers University as professor of music. He held this tenure until 2000, mentoring many of today’s young talents including David Sanchez, Terence Blanchard and Regina Bell.
On the recording scene, in 1974 Barron recorded his first album as a leader for the Muse label, entitled “Sunset To Dawn.” This was to be the first in over 40 recordings as a leader. Throughout the 1980s, Barron collaborated with the great tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, touring with his quartet and recording several legendary albums including “Anniversary”, “Serenity” and the Grammy nominated “People Time”.
Barron’s own recordings for Verve have earned him nine Grammy nominations beginning in 1992 with “People Time”, followed by the Brazilian influenced “Sambao” and most recently for “Freefall” in 2002. Other Grammy nominations went to “Spirit Song”, “Night and the City” (a duet recording with Charlie Haden) and “Wanton Spirit” a trio recording with Roy Haynes and Charlie Haden.
In 2018, Barron celebrated his 75th birthday and mark the 50th year of a remarkable recording career that shows no signs of slowing down.
He has been honored by The National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master. In 2005 he was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame and in 2009 he was inducted into the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He was named Best Pianist in 2017 by the Jazz Journalists Association, marking a record seven times he has won the award.
For more information on Kenny Barron, visit kennybarron.com .
After the Kenny Barron Quintet, the remaining Jazz Series concerts are Joey DeFrancesco on Feb. 7, 2019, and Benny Green Trio & Veronica Swift on March 7, 2019.
Tickets for jazz series concerts range from $35-$45.
St. Cecilia Music Center is located at 24 Ransom NE, Grand Rapids. For tickets or more information call 616-459-2224 or visit www.scmc-online.org.
St. Cecilia Music Center’s School of Music youth jazz program performance with Robin Connell conducting, from 2017. (Supplied/St. Cecilia Music Center)
Robin Connell, who wears many hats on the Grand Rapids music scene including director of the St. Cecilia Music Center’s youth jazz ensemble, has picked up another gig at St. Cecilia.
Connell was announced last month as the new conductor of the center’s adult Grand Band, and there is general agreement that means more “fun” for all.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled that Robin is conducting the St. Cecilia Music Center Grand Band,” Martha Cudipp Bundra, St. Cecilia education director, said to WKTV. “She has been teaching our Jazz Combo program for 4 years now and the students love her. Robin has extensive teaching experience and knowledge that will enhance the musical experience for our adult band members. She brings a unique style to her teaching and a great sense of fun.”
Rehearsals of the Grand Band have begun for the new season but new members are always welcome to inquire and no auditions are required. The band rehearses 9:30-11:30 a.m. Monday mornings.
“The adult band is so much fun,” Connell said to WKTV. “It has a lot of members who have been it for many years. But newbies come, too.”
For more information on the Grand Band for adults, visit here. St. Cecilia’s youth jazz ensembles, one of which Connell leads, will hold auditions on Tuesday, Oct. 16. For more information visit here.
St. Cecilia, Connell have history
“I’m thrilled and honored to be working at SCMC,” Connell said. “The various concerts and education programs offered are phenomenal and integral to downtown Grand Rapids.
Robin Connell
“We really appreciate SCMC hosting the youth jazz program (which started in 2014) and the amazing support we get financially and administratively. … Martha is great to work with as the director of education, but I also need to sing the praises of our administrative assistant, Rebecca Steinke. She assists Martha in various ways with all the ensembles and is there at night when we rehearse, too. And she plays flute in the Grand Band!”
Connell, according to a supplied biography, is a jazz pianist-vocalist with a doctorate of arts in music theory and composition from the University of Northern Colorado. Her career as a performing musician, composer, and educator, is an alternating kaleidoscope of jazz and classical endeavors.
Her educator credits include teaching at Aquinas College, Grand Rapids Community College, Long Island University, Garden City Community College, the Interlochen Center for the Arts (20 summers), the Aquinas Jazz Camp, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
In addition to teaching, Robin continues to lead her own jazz groups and perform as a “side woman” locally and afar, traveling extensively as performer, guest composer-conductor, and clinician/adjudicator. Since 2014, Robin also co-produces and hosts the “Jazz in the Sanctuary” concert series at Grand Rapids’ Fountain Street Church.
Two bands, two different experiences
As far as her expanding teaching load at St. Cecilia, Connell says there are similarities but also unique aspects to working with adults as opposed to youth.
“There is very little similarity between the youth jazz combo and the Grand Band adults, other than everyone’s shared love of playing music,” she said. “Most jazz band scores that are playable by younger students have simpler instrumentation than concert band music … My husband (Paul Brewer) directs the youth jazz big band. There is a bit more similarity between that band and a concert band in that all the music is written out, with very little improvised.
The St. Cecilia Grand Band in rehearsal at the music center’s Royce Auditorium, from 2016. (WKTV)
“The concert band music is completely written out and players must adhere to the written notes. The conductor’s job is to become immersed in the score, to internalize it, and ‘coach’ the ensemble as per the conductor’s interpretation.”
But Connell said she is getting into working with the adults.
“I am enjoying digging into completely different repertoire and having the chance to work on my conducting skills more,” she said. “There are also a lot of women in the band whereas the youth bands are almost all boys. I’m totally used to being the only woman, or in the minority, but I’m really also enjoying rehearsing a group with a lot of women — and men — who are totally geeked about instrumental music.”
Shameless plug for a great music series
The “Jazz in the Sanctuary” series begins its fifth season Nov. 4 with “Paul Brewer & Altin Sencalar in Tribute to J & K”, a concert featuring a jazz quintet, led by trombonists Brewer and Sencalar, performing the compositions and arrangements of J.J. Johnson & Kai Winding. More dates are scheduled in 2019. For more information visit fountainstreet.org/jazz.
“The Kids”, an American indie folk duo consisting of Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale, are from California, have been performing since 2011 and are what one reviewer called “absolute geniuses in close-harmony.” (Supplied)
When St. Cecilia Music Center announced last week the addition of The Milk Carton Kids to its 2018-19 folk series concert lineup, I remembered the duo’s brief appearance on the concert film “Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis” but, embarrassingly, realized I knew practically nothing about the duo.
Then, in researching the group’s latest release — All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do, which came out June 29— I found out the new music was produced by Joe Henry.
That was all I needed to know.
The Milk Carton Kids will appear as part of St. Cecilia’s impressive and not-done-yet Acoustic Café Folk Series on Feb. 28, 2019.
“The Kids”, an American indie folk duo consisting of Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale, are from California, have been performing since 2011 and are what one reviewer called “absolute geniuses in close-harmony.”
Nominated in 2015 for a Grammy for Best American Roots Performance, Best Folk Album of the year in 2013, and winner of The Americana Music Association for Best Duo/Group of the year in 2014, the Kids have just started touring in support of All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do.
“Musically we knew we were going to make the record with a bigger sonic palette,” Ryan said in supplied material. “It was liberating to know we didn’t have to be able to carry every song with just our two guitars.”
And if you want to change our sonic palette, whether your a musician or a listener, there may be no better producer than Henry — in the last 10 years he has worked with the likes of the Madonna, Rosanne Cash, the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Rhiannon Giddens one-time band), Over the Rhine, Bonnie Raitt and Billy Bragg (one-time with Wilco); to just scratch the surface.
And Henry’s own musical work is not shabby either, as evidenced by last year’s Thrum. (Although my favorite is 1999’s Fuse.)
But we were talking about the Milk Carton Kids …
The Kids have proven in-demand collaborators, including musical partnerships with Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Dar Williams, and Chris Hillman, as well as teaming with T-Bone Burnett and the Coen Brothers for the acclaimed concert documentary “Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis” — the concert documentary derived from the final Coen Brothers film “Insider Llewyn Davis”. In 2016, the band joined forces with Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, and Robert Plant for the sold out Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees tour.
The new project marks the first time that the acoustic duo, Ryan and Pattengale, have brought a band into the studio with them.
“We wanted to do something new,” Pattengale said in supplied material. “We had been going around the country yet another time to do the duo show, going to the places we’d been before. There arose some sort of need for change.”
The Kids’ trademark two-part harmonies “ride acoustic guitars high above the haunting landscape created by the presence of the band, as if Americana went searching for a lost America,” according to supplied material.
Produced by Henry, All the Things … was recorded in October 2017 in the Sun Room at House of Blues Studio in Nashville. Musicians who joined them there included Brittany Haas on violin and mandolin, Paul Kowert and Dennis Crouch on bass, Jay Bellerose on drums, Levon Henry on clarinet and saxophone, Nat Smith on cello, Pat Sansone on piano, mellotron, and Hammond organ, Russ Pahl on pedal steel and other guitars and Lindsay Lou and Logan Ledger as additional singers.
“By extending that language to a band and reimagining the boundaries around what acoustic-centered two-part harmony can sound like, All The Things That I Did and All The Things That I Didn’t Do carries listeners down a river and out into the open sea,” Pattengale said.
Can’t wait to catch up with the Kids, but, must admit, that title sounds like a line from one of Henry’s trademark unfathomable songs.
The new announcement of The Milk Carton Kids brings the St. Cecilia folk series to four concerts, with more to be announced: Pokey LaFarge on Oct. 4, The Lone Bellow on Nov. 29, and Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn Feb. 9, 2019.
Tickets for The Milk Carton Kids are $40 and $45. All tickets can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org.
Pokey LaFarge will return his sound and songs to the St. Cecilia Music Center’s Acoustic Café stage. (Supplied)
Pokey LaFarge, and the pairing of Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, must have liked taking the stage at Royce Auditorium as both will be returning to town as part of St. Cecilia Music Center’s Folk Series of concerts. Of course, who doesn’t like that stage?
Return engagements by LaFarge and Fleck/Washburn were recently announced at part of St. Cecilia’s 2018-19 season — a season celebrating the 135-year history as the oldest arts organization in Grand Rapids and West Michigan.
LaFarge, who last appeared at St. Cecilia in early 2017, is scheduled for Oct. 4. Fleck and Washburn were on the venue’s just completed 2017-18 season schedule, appearing in February, and will return early next year, on Feb. 9, 2019. SCMC previously announced The Lone Bellow was scheduled for Nov. 29.
“Pokey LaFarge charmed our audience … (and) he’ll be returning … to begin his solo tour across the country,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material. “He’s a fabulous musician and totally engaging entertainer.”
And she is just as gushing over the return of Fleck and Washburn.
Banjo royalty and husband and wife duo Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn. (Supplied)
“We are so excited to have Béla and Abigail with us again,” Holbrook said. “Their sold-out concert together this year was one of our finest ever. … We are very lucky to have them together on stage again in 2019 to celebrate our 135th year anniversary.”
St. Louis-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Pokey LaFarge will come back to St. Cecilia for a more intimate, solo performance this time. (He was with his band in 2017.) LaFarge incorporates elements of early jazz, ragtime, country blues, Western swing, with a vivid storytelling sensibility are totally his own. Two of LaFarge’s albums have been named Best Americana Album by the Independent Music Awards.
Fleck and Washburn — not unjustly called “The king and queen of the banjo” — not only entertain with their music but with the often humorous, sometimes heartfelt stories about their lives and relationship.
Fleck is a 15-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the banjo across multiple genres, and Washburn is a singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjo player who re-radicalized it by combining it with Far East culture and sounds, according to supplied material. Together, the pair perform pieces from their Grammy-winning self-titled debut as well as their newest record, Echo in the Valley, from 2017.
As previously announced, The Lone Bellow is a Brooklyn-based band, now based out of Nashville, known for their transcendent harmonies, serious musicianship and lively performances.The trio features Zach Williams (guitar/vocals), Kanene Donehey Pipkin (multi-instrumentalist), and Brian Elmquist (guitar).
St. Cecilia’s Royce Auditorium “will be the perfect venue for this great band,” Holbrook said of The Lone Bellow. “Stay tuned for even more folk concerts to be announced as the fall approaches.”
Concert tickets for the Pokey LaFarge solo concert on Oct. 4 are $30 and $35, The Lone Bellow concert on Nov. 29 are $30 and $35, and the Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn concert on Feb. 9 are $50 and $55. They can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org.
The fall is still a few months off but St. Cecilia Music Center is already well along in planning for its 2018-19 music season, with its first folk music concert announcement teasing another great season, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center returning, and a series of special events for Women’s History Month in March 2019 to celebrate the center’s 135th year anniversary.
But its complete jazz series line-up is out, and it is nothing short of great.
The 4-concert jazz series will feature an impressive lineup of Grammy award winning musicians including trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, the Kenny Barron Quintet, Joey DeFranceso, and the Benny Green Trio with 23-year old jazz sensation Veronica Swift.
“This year’s jazz series is also going to be phenomenal with some legends, as well as rising stars, in the mix,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material.
“Phenomenal” is not an overstatement when it comes to describing the series, either.
The jazz series will begin its season Oct. 11 with 10-time Grammy Award winning trumpeter Sandoval, a Cuban-born artist who burst onto the American jazz scene as a young protégé of the legendary jazz master Dizzy Gillespie, but now has firmly established his place in the jazz world.
In addition to his 10 Grammy awards, Sandoval has been nominated 19 times for a n award. He has also received 6 Billboard Awards and an Emmy Award, the latter for his composing work on the entire underscore of the HBO movie based on his life, “For Love or Country” that starred Andy Garcia as Arturo.
Following Sandoval on the jazz series will be the Kenny Barron Quintet on Nov. 1. Barron, a pianist, earned the first of his 11 Grammy awards in 1992 for Best Jazz Album with “People Time”, a duet with Stan Getz, and won most recently in 2017 for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
DeFranceso — named as “one of the best B-3 players on the planet” by Jazz Times — will appear with his quartet “The People” on Feb. 7, 2019. DeFranceso will soon be releasing his new album, “Project Freedom”, which features him on the Hammond B-3, along with contributions on keyboards, trumpet and as a vocalist. Accompanying DeFrancesco will be drummer Jason Brown, guitarist Dan Wilson and saxophonist Troy Roberts — collectively billed as “The People.”
The final jazz series concert of the season will be the Benny Green Trio, with young jazz singer Swift, on March 7, 2019. Swift will launch her newest album release this year and the recording will feature the pianist Green and his trio. At age 23, Swift is considered one of the top young jazz singers on the scene. In the fall of 2015, she won second place at the prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition. In 2016, she was asked to perform a concert of her own at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York City and she was a guest artist with Michael Feinstein at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
No unknown to jazz fans, Green combines “a mastery of keyboard technique with decades of real world experience playing with no one less than the most celebrated artists of the last half century,” according to supplied material.
More news on the 2018-19 season
The Trout Quintet (Supplied)
In upcoming season news for its chamber music series and its Acoustic Cafe series, St. Cecilia has renewed three-year partnership with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the result will be concerts featuring music from Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn to Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. An expanded folk series also kicks off with the renowned Brooklyn-now-Nashville-based band The Lone Bellow.
“We are very excited about the artists coming for our 135th anniversary season,” Holbrook said. “And, we are so pleased to renew another three-year agreement with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, securing many seasons of phenomenal chamber music.”
And speaking of its 135th anniversary events, St. Cecilia announced two special events during March 2019 Women’s History Month.
St. Cecilia Music Center’s history is integrally aligned with women’s history in Grand Rapids, according to supplied material. The organization was founded in 1883 by nine Grand Rapids women and was the only organization of its kind to be run solely by women. It was through the efforts of the first women of the music center that the historic building on Ransom Avenue was erected in 1894, “and it is their original mission that St. Cecilia continues to uphold today.”
St. Cecilia Music Center’s mission is to promote the study, appreciation and performance of music in order to enrich the lives of West Michigan residents. The Center fulfills this mission by presenting visiting world-class artists in concert, providing music education for all ages through our School of Music and preserving a historic building for musical activities and community events.
“Celebrating (our) … 135th anniversary with special events during Women’s History Month in March 2019 is extremely meaningful and appropriate,” Holbrook said. “We are thrilled to honor the late Helen DeVos for the amazing vision she had for the arts in Grand Rapids and to keep her legacy alive with the continuation of the Helen DeVos Legacy Award in years to come.”
For more information on St. Cecilia and its 2018-19 season, visit scmc-online.org .
Pianist Vonsattel Gilles will be a featured performer at the final chamber music concert at St. Cecilia Music Center. (Supplied photo by Marco Borggreve)
By St. Cecilia Music Center
St. Cecilia Music Center will present the season finale of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center season, a program titled “Classical Evolution, Showcases Mozart, Weber and Brahms”, on Thursday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m.
The performance will feature pianist Gilles Vonsattel, violinists Ida Kavafian and Erin Keefe, violist Yura Lee, cellist Nicholas Canellakis and clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich.
“The final concert of this season with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) will bring some of our favorite chamber music artists back to SCMC and introduce us to a few new artists as well,” stated Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director. “The title of this concert, ‘Classical Evolution’showcases these stellar musicians performing works by Mozart, Weber and Brahms. Every chamber music concert with CMS is an exciting musical experience and this will be another night of magic.”
The Program will include Trio in E-flat major for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, K. 498, “Kegelstatt”, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Quintet in B-flat major for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 34, by Carl Maria von Weber; and Quintet in F minor for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 34, by Johannes Brahms.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is known for the extraordinary quality of its performances, its inspired programming, and for setting the benchmark for chamber music worldwide. No other chamber music organization does more to promote, to educate and to foster a love of and appreciation for the art form.
CMS brings together the very best international artists from an ever-expanding roster of more than 150 artists per season, to provide audiences with the kind of exhilarating concert experiences that have critics calling CMS “an exploding star in the musical firmament.”
St. Cecilia Music Center and CMS have an ongoing partnership that brings the group to Royce Auditorium each season.
Concert tickets are $38 and $43 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org. A pre-concert wine / hors d’oeuvres event for $15 is available and begins at 6:00 p.m. (Reservations are required.)
There will also be a pre-concert talk with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center artists on Royce Auditorium stage beginning at 7 p.m. to discuss the music selection for the evening and any other questions that pertain to the artists themselves. All ticket holders are welcome to attend the artist talk. A post-concert party is open to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to meet the artists and obtain signed CDs of their releases.
Asleep at the Wheel’s current line-up is a mix o f founding members and new faces. (Supplied)
By St. Cecilia Music Center
St. Cecilia Music Center brings American Country Music Group Asleep at the Wheel to the Royce Auditorium stage on Thursday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. The band will arrive in Grand Rapids directly following six straight concert dates in their home state of Texas.
With recent band additions Katie Shore (fiddle, vocals), Dennis Ludiker (fiddle, mandolin) Connor Forsyth (keyboard, vocals) and Josh Hoag (Bass), Asleep at the Wheel’s newest members have given a newfound energy and their own unique style to the band.
Asleep at the Wheel veterans Ray Benson (lead guitar and vocals), David Sanger (drums) Eddie Rivers (steel guitar) and Jay Reynolds (saxophone and clarinet) round out the new 8-piece band who will appear at St. Cecilia.
“It is St. Cecilia Music Center’s mission to bring great music to Grand Rapids and we are pleased to bring Asleep at the Wheel to the Acoustic Café Series,” Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia executive director, said in supplied material. “With the appearance of Margo Price last season, we opened the door for country music artists to perform in our acoustically-superb and intimate hall. We trust Asleep at the Wheel fans will be excited to hear them up close and personal.”
Founding member of the band, Benson, launched Asleep at the Wheel in Paw Paw, West Virginia 48 years ago. Now based in Austin, Texas, the band has garnered 10 Grammy Awards, released more than 20 studio and live albums, and charted 20 singles on the Billboard country music charts.
The Grammy Award-winning Still The King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys is the band’s most recent release (2015) and marks their third full-length Bob Wills tribute album. Featuring 22 acclaimed collaborations, the all-star lineup over the years has included legends such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and George Strait, The Avett Brothers, Amos Lee, Old Crow Medicine Show and many other fine talents.
The Acoustic Café Series, in partnership with the syndicated radio show of the same name, will round out the season with singer/songwriter, banjo and fiddler Rhiannon Giddens co-founder of the Grammy award-winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops.
SCMC formed a partnership three years ago with the syndicated radio show Acoustic Café and its host Rob Reinhart. The Ann Arbor based radio program is syndicated to over 120 commercial and non-commercial stations throughout the country and airs locally in Grand Rapids on WYCE Friday mornings. The series at SCMC features touring singer/songwriter folk/Americana musicians in concert and also presents the opportunity for a live taping with the artists and Rob Reinhart.
“Since its inception in the 2015-16 season the Acoustic Café Folk Series has expanded its offerings and brought some of today’s up and coming artists, as well as some of the veterans of the singer/songwriter genre,” Holbrook said in supplied material.
Tickets for Asleep at the Wheel tickets are $35 and $40 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org . A post-concert party with a cash bar will be offered to all ticket-holders where the band’s CD’s can be purchased.
Looking for something local to cap off your spring break week? Cedar Springs Brewing Company will host its third annual Starkbierfest — strong beer fest — on Saturday, April 7, with a heated tent with live music, limited beer releases, and a sausage party. And you know how well German beer goes with German sausages.
Never heard of Starkbierfest? According to the brewery, besides the famous Oktoberfest, Starkbierfest (“Strong Beer Festival”) is the second big German beer festival time during the year. Historically, monks brewed strong beer (Bockbier), which was higher in calories and a bit stronger to substitute for food during Lenten fasting. This “liquid bread” and annual brewing specialties have survived the times and re-emerged … at Cedar Springs Brewing.
Four beers are set to be released: Küsterer Maibock, a spring strong lager in collaboration with North Channel Brewing; Küsterer Pale Bock, a traditional Bavarian pale lager bock; Big Sid Rides a Buffalo, a Buffalo Trace Bourbon barrel aged barley wine; and Tim the Enchanter, a strong Belgian golden ale.
There are various party packages available, including the Starknaked Package (we will not delve further into the name) for $20 per person, and the four-person Sausage Party Package (again, no comment) for $60.
Live music will be provided from 2:30 p.m. until sometime after 8 p.m. or when the beer runs out, by Dave Salvinski (German/folk music), Fauxgrass (progressive bluegrass), and Delilah DeWilde (rockabilly).
The Starkbierfest will be held Saturday, April 7, from 3-9 p.m., at Cedar Springs Brewing Company, 95 N Main, Cedar Springs. For more information visit csbrew.com .
St. Cecilia fundraiser to feature Martha’s Vineyeard wine tasting
More of a fine wine palette? The “Eat. Drink. Be Merry!” Martha’s Vineyard Wine Tasting Annual Fundraiser to benefit St. Cecilia Music Center will be held on Saturday, April 14.
Wine more your taste? Check out the wine tasting event at St. Cecilia Music Center. (Supplied)
Grand Rapids fine wine purveyor Martha’s Vineyard will supply the wine and food at the music center’s annual fundraiser, to be held from 6-10 p.m., on two floors at St. Cecilia’s historic building. The night will feature more than 100 wine varietals at various price points, we are told. Some of the wines to be featured are specific to the event and will only be available through special order at the event. Discounts on all wine orders at the event will be offered.
The event will include hors d’oeuvres from Catering by Martha’s and Nantucket Baking Company, as well as musical entertainment and a silent auction with many unique wines, wine-tasting trips, vacations, entertainment packages and dining packages up for bid.
St. Cecilia Music Center is located at 24 Ransom NE, downtown Grand Rapids. The cost is $40 per person and advance tickets can be purchased at Martha’s Vineyard, 200 Union Ave NE, Grand Rapids, online at scmc-online.org or by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224. Tickets are limited.
Boatyard Brewing plans ‘Friends’ brew as Alzheimers fundraiser
It is still a month away, but summer weekend schedules fill up quickly so you may want to mark your schedule for Kalamazoo’s Boatyard Brewing Company release party of its New Friends Brew on Friday, May 11, which will benefit a September “Walk to End Alzheimers” fundraiser.
“I am the captain of our walk team and every year in September there is a big walk,” Corie Shireman said to WKTV. “So all year long we do fundraising as a company to raise funds for our walk team. Last year we made our goal of $5,000. So, every year, it becomes more of a challenge for me to think of new ways to raise funds and awareness for the Alzheimers Association. So because of my love for craft beer I took it upon myself to ask a local brewery if they would consider naming a beer after us and the possibilities of any of the proceeds going to us.”
The result: New Friends Brew, the sales of which will benefit $1 for each draft beer purchased to the New Friends Walk team, and a party.
The beer release and tapping party will be Friday, May 11, 5-8 p.m., at the Boatyard Brewing Company, 432 E. Patterson St. The event will include live entertainment from Delilah DeWylde and Lee Harvey. For more information visit boatyardbrewing.com .
Grey Skies Distillery releases first straight bourbon whiskey
Grand Rapids’ Gray Skies Distillery released its first straight bourbon whiskey on March 22 and while its initial sales will be exclusively at their downtown Grand Rapids tasting room subsequent releases beginning fall of this year will be available through licensed retailers, bars, and restaurants around Michigan, according to the distillery.
Michigan Straight Bourbon Whiskey was aged in charred new, oak barrels for over two years and bottled at 90 proof, we are told. Following their Breakfast Rye and Single Malt Whiskey, Michigan Straight Bourbon Whiskey is the third American whiskey Gray Skies Distillery has released.
“Michigan Straight Bourbon Whiskey is simply named to highlight what it is – straight bourbon distilled and aged in Michigan,” Steve Vander Pol, co-owner of Gray Skies Distillery, said in supplied material. “The straight designation signifies the bourbon was aged at least two years and has no additional flavors added.”
Grey Skies Distillery is located at 700 Ottawa Ave NW, Grand Rapids. For more information visit grayskiesdistillery.com .
Recorded September 2016 at Grand Valley State University, “I Love Being Here with You” with singer Libby York, John Proulx on piano and vocals, Paul Keller on bass, and Pete Siers on drums.
Grammy winning jazz pianist and singer John Proulx — Grand Rapids native recently returned from the La La Land — will soon release his new CD, “Say It”, to his national audience. But he will hold a little concert and release party for his hometown friends and fans at St. Cecilia Music Center this week.
Proulx, along with a trio which includes Paul Keller on bass and Pete Siers on drums, will hit St. Cecilia’s Royce Auditorium stage Sunday, Feb. 25, at 2 p.m. Tickets are still available.
The St. Cecilia concert is also being called a “Welcome Home” event as Proulx recently returned to Grand Rapids with his wife and family after living in Los Angeles for 16 years, and the musician used to play piano recitals at the venue as a child.
“I am thrilled to be celebrating two life milestones,” Proulx said in supplied material. “ After living in Los Angeles for 16 years, my family and I have recently moved back to Grand Rapids … and we’re grateful to be closer to our family here in West Michigan.”
Talking about his new release, Proulx said: “The new album, produced by Judy Wexler, features a great lineup of musicians including Chuck Berghofer, Joe LaBarbera, Larry Koonse, Bob Shepard, three string quartet arrangements by Alan Broadbent, and a duet with Melissa Manchester. The songs are a mixture of jazz standards, folk tunes, and one original song.”
Grammy winning jazz pianist and singer John Proulx, along with a trio which includes Paul Keller on bass and Pete Siers on drums, will hit St. Cecilia’s Royce Auditorium stage Sunday. (Supplied)
Proulx began his formal musical education at the age of three in Grand Rapids on Suzuki violin, but quickly switched to classical piano lessons, according to his website. His late grandfather, Clyde Proulx, was a jazz guitarist who introduced him to the world of jazz. After graduating from Catholic Central High School, he studied at Roosevelt University’s Chicago School of Performing Arts, where he received a Bachelors of Music degree in 1999.
One of the reasons for his return to Western Michigan is to continue his education and an pursue a Master’s degree from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.
Starting in 2001, Proulx moved to Los Angeles to further his musical pursuits. He emerged as a young talent on the Los Angeles jazz scene, according to his website, and he also spent four months in 2009 at the prestigious Feinstein’s at the Loews Regency hotel in New York City playing a nightly solo piano/vocal engagement. He has appeared on Michael Feinstein’s radio show on NPR, “Song Travels” as well as on Marian McPartland’s radio show, “Piano Jazz”.
Proulx won a Grammy as a composer when Nancy Wilson recorded “These Golden Years”, a song he co-wrote with lyricist D. Channsin Berry, for her 2006 Grammy-winning CD, “Turned to Blue.” Proulx also co-wrote a song called “Stained Glass” with Melissa Manchester for his new album, “Say It”. Proulx and Manchester also co-wrote a song called “Big Light” for her 20th studio album, “You Gotta Love The Life”, featuring a duet with Manchester and Al Jarreau.
For more information about John Proulx, visit johnproulx.com .
Tickets for the John Proulx CD release concert are $20 and $30, with a copy of Proulx’s new release included with the $30 A section ticket. A post-concert CD signing party will also be included with each ticket. Tickets are now available by calling 616-459-2224 or visiting St. Cecilia Music Center at 24 Ransom NE, Grand Rapids, 49503. Tickets can also be purchased online at scmc-online.org .
St. Cecilia Music Center will bring husband and wife duo Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn to Royce Auditorium on Friday, Feb. 23. as part of the center’s Acoustic Café Series. This will be the duo’s first appearance together in Grand Rapids.
Tickets are still available.
Fleck and Washburn have been called “the king and queen of the banjo.” On stage, they will perform pieces from their 2016 Grammy-winning self-titled debut album, as well as their new record, Echo in the Valley.
Fleck is a 15-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the instrument across multiple genres, and Washburn is a singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjo player who re-radicalized it by combining it with Far East culture and sounds.
Echo in the Valley is the follow up to Fleck and Washburn’s acclaimed, self-titled debut that earned the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. “This time around, the mission was to take our double banjo combination of three finger and clawhammer styles to the next level and find things to do together that we had not done before,” says Fleck. “We’re expressing different emotions through past techniques and going to deeper places.”
The Acoustic Café Series, in partnership with the syndicated radio show of the same name, will round out the season with the band Asleep at the Wheel on April 12, as well as singer/songwriter, banjo and fiddler Rhiannon Giddens on May 17.
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn tickets are $45 and $50 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org. A post-concert party with a cash bar will be offered to all ticket-holders.
