Saturday, September 23, 2006 at 7:30 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
Luma elevates the child-like pleasures of playing with glow-in- the-dark illuminators to an astonishing, one-of-a-kind light show. Using darkness as a canvas and light as a brush, Luma’s performers paint dazzling, dancing images that tell stories and spin a visual magic that evokes awe and wonder, set to hypnotic music.
See & hear more from LUMA!
Sunday, October 1, 2006 at 2:00 PM
Walker Recital Hall (Hirt Building)
Irene Gómez is an artist of an exquisite sensitivity and a pristine intelligence. The sonorousness springing from her guitar is a crystal from the purest quality with a delicate technique, elegance and an emotion which she puts at the Music World service. She became the first guitarist to graduate summa cum laude from the National University of Colombia and in France she won the Golden Medal in Guitar and Golden Medal in Chamber Music of the “Claude Debussy” Conservatorium at Saint Germain. She also obtained the First Prize of Improvement towards Perfection.
Irene Gómez audio clips
Friday, October 6, 2006 at 8:00 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
opera, and you’ve heard rock—but you’ve never heard opera rocked like the East Village Opera Company. Whether you love classics from Queen or classics from Verdi you’ll be intrigued as this eclectic band reinvents opera arias into bona fide rock anthems. A powerhouse five-piece band, a string quartet, and two outstanding vocalists bring the towering emotion and timeless musicality of opera into the 21st century. According to Time Out New York, “The East Village Opera Company’s charisma is inescapable and infectious; they electrify the classics for a new generation.”
Saturday, October 21, 2006 at 8:00 PM
Walker Recital Hall (Hirt Building)
Her music is unique, soulful, and enchanting, encompassing her wide array of influences from Sarah Vaughan to Ben Folds Five. Sara Gazarek was just another college kid from the Northwest, scrambling to make tuition as a jazz performance major at the esteemed Thornton School of Music at USC when she was named as a recipient of the prestigious Downbeat Student Music Award for Outstanding Collegiate Jazz Vocalist. Now, after the release of her remarkable debut CD “Yours,” Sara has performed with such jazz legends as Oleta Adams, Karrin Allyson, and Diane Schuur.
Saturday, November 4, 2006 at 8:00 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
Niyaz was founded by Iranian vocalist and composer Azam Ali, multi-instrumentalist and composer Loga Ramin Torkian and twice Grammy-nominated American producer/remixer Carmen Rizzo (Seal, Alanis Morisette, Paul Oakenfold). Together the members of Niyaz have established a new common ground, where the ageless mystical poetry of Urdu and Persian Sufi poets is adventurously placed in the context of sweeping electronic beats and Iranian/Indian acoustic instrumentation. For their Erie appearance, oud player Dmitris Mahlis and tabla player Satnam Ramgotra round out the group. Don’t miss this new world music for the 21st century harkening from the campus of Mercyhurst College!
Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 7:30 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
Ba Cissoko is a Guinean world music band, featuring four members, two of which are playing the traditional Kora harp. The other two band members play percussions and bass, respectively. They are one of those rare groups adored by their entire country. Young people love them for their tradition-breaking approach to the kora, and old people love them for continuing the art of that instrument, rather than indulging in rap or other such frivolities. If Eric Clapton played kora, this is surely what he would sound like.
Saturday, December 2, 2006 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 3, 2006 at 2:00 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
The MDPAC welcomes the Dave Stevens Big Band back to our stage for another fabulous Christmas concert. We are thrilled to have Erie’s own Dave Stevens partner with a remarkable voice — a soul-infused alto tinged with haunting echoes of the postwar jazz greats. He teams up with Helen Welch, who found her niche with some of the Britain’s leading orchestras including the BBC Big Band and Opus One. Now an Ohio resident, Helen is continuing her singing and acting career.
More info on Dave Steven Big Band
See & hear more from Helen Welcheleareer
Friday, February 16,2007 at 8:00 PM
Mary D‘Angelo Performing Arts Center
Originally from Rome but now based in New York City, Italian singer/songwriter Chiara Civello is an eclectic, far-reaching artist who brings a variety of pop, jazz, cabaret and Latin influences to the table. Tony Bennett has called her “the best jazz singer of her generation.” Cindy Lauper says her voice “just captivates you.” Her debut release for Verve Forecast, Last Quarter Moon, highlights her vocal instrument, her gift for writing poetic lyrics, and an approach to composition that blends her pop sensibility with a global perspective.
Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Walker Recital Hall (Hirt Building)
Louis T. Hardin, better known as Moondog, was one of the 20th century’s most respected musical icons, and also a pioneer on the avant garde/minimalist scene, lauded by Philip Glass, who called him the originator of minimalism. A Kansas native, Moondog arrived in Manhattan in 1943 and occupied a street corner on 6th Avenue and 54th Street, where he entertained with homemade drums, portable keyboard, and his own poetry. Swedish born Stefan Lakatos, the inheritor of the unique Moondog percussion instrument known as the trimbas, entertains audiences to Moondog’s legacy, which consists of some of the most beautiful and peculiar music that still amazes listeners all over the world - music that has influenced John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Paul Simon, and many others. Project Moondog is spearheaded by local musician Lou Nicolia who will be joined in performance by Lakatos and seven other local musicians.
Friday, March 2, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
From the Great Wall of China to a packed stadium in the Holy Land and more recently being the first Irish band to perform at the greatest music festival in the world, Rock in Rio, Dervish have come a long way in ten years. Opening the concert is Patrick Ball a master storyteller and one of the world’s leading Celtic harpists. He’ll play hauntingly beautiful ballads and spin lilting storytelling which could easily spring from the 17th century…but it’s seems as current as the latest troubles in Belfast.
Walker Recital Hall (Hirt Building)
Won first prize at the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition in August 2005. From the original field of 240 applicants, 30 pianists from 17 countries competed in Cleveland through three solo rounds. The four finalists performed concertos with the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra. Ms. Huang’s prize package included the Mixon First Prize of $50,000, a recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, New York, and numerous professional concert engagements.
Tuesday, March 13,2007 at 7:30 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
“Few theater artists today can achieve the level of visual splendor and theatrical magic that Mr. Pendleton can conjure,” says The Wall Street Journal of Momix’s celebrated founder Moses Pendleton (also the co-founder of Pilobolus). His versatile troupe of dancer/illusionists freely mixes classical ballet, modern dance, gymnastics, and theatrical illusion, creating surrealistic tableaux that are stunning, stimulating, and always entertaining. The troupe brings one of its latest works, Opus Cactus, a suite of 21 dances built around an American Southwest theme and set to music ranging from Bach to Brian Eno.
Friday, March 23, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
Life, A Guide for the Perplexed, the Flying Karamazovs’ newest and perhaps most ambitious show ever, is a spectacle of hilarity and silliness that is bound to tickle your eyes as well as your sides. The show is a series of parables designed to help one survive the modern world. (Of course these are parables as seen through the prism of Karamazovian eyes, so don’t expect the unexpected…don’t even expect the expected!)
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center
An exploration and celebration of the South. In Under Southern Skies, the internationally lauded Dance Company celebrates the music and artists of the South and reflects on the ever-changing landscape of the region. The program includes “Shindig” - the rollicking ballet set to traditional bluegrass music performed live by the Greasy Beans. New works by Artistic Director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux (with the acclaimed singer/songwriter Christine Kane), former Alvin Ailey dancer and current NCDT company member Uri Sands, and the renowned Mark Godden complete the program. Each explores an aspect of what makes the South, its artists, and the culture of the region unique.
Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Walker Recital Hall (Hirt Building)
With diverse cultural and musical influences, the Fareed Haque Group is opening new doors with a completely fresh approach to world music that grooves and percolates. The group makes its debut with the release of Cosmic Hug a unique combination of world, jazz, and jam. Earthy, vital, breezy, electric, and truly eclectic, Fareed Haque Group defies easy categorization; they have a sound that will appeal to many while compromising to no one. The band approaches the art of jazz improvisation in wide-ranging ways, bringing Middle Eastern scales, American-pop song forms and other far-flung elements to everything he plays.”
Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Walker Recital Hall (Hirt Building)
Hear the Gold Medal performances in a combined tour of the top prize winners from two of the world’s major competitions. Yingdi Sun, the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition of Utrecht, The Netherlands and Augustin Hadelich, the winner of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Don’t miss this dazzling display of artistry from two of the latest young sensations to hit the concert scene.
More info on the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis
Saturday, May 5, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Walker Reciital Hall (Hirt Building)
Winners of the 2004 BBC Radio award for folk band of the year and also “Best Folk Band of the Year 2005″ at the Scots Traditional Music Awards, Old Blind Dogs remain one of the most exciting Scottish bands around. The band has developed its own trademark style in which dynamic percussion and bluesy harmonica fuel delicately-phrased melodies of traditional song. In concert, their respectful yet bracingly modern musical attack is a source of continual surprise, equall capable of moving your heart as it is your feet.
