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| | Mar 25, 2023
True Blues – Award winning legends tell and play the story of the blues
Hosted by Corey Harris, a MacArthur Grant recipient, along with America’s foremost blues harmonica virtuoso, Phil Wiggins and Cedric Watson, True Blues chronicles the extraordinary living culture of the blues in an evening of music and conversation. The True Blues concert vividly brings to life this crucial wellspring of American music through these legendary musicians.
Corey was featured in Martin Scorcese’s “The Blues: A Musical Journey,” which followed Corey on a roots journey to West Africa. Cory Harris is a guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and band leader who has carved out his own niche in blues. A powerful singer and accomplished guitarist, he has appeared at venues throughout the North America, Europe, Brazil, The Caribbean, West Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In his early twenties he lived in Cameroon, West Africa for a year, which had a profound effect on his later work. He has recorded many old songs of the blues tradition while also creating an original vision of the blues by adding influences from reggae, soul, rock and West African music.
Phil Wiggins is arguably America’s foremost blues harmonica virtuoso. While rooted in the melodic Piedmont or “Tidewater” blues of the Chesapeake region, his mastery of the instrument now transcends stylistic boundaries. Born in Washington D.C. in 1954, Phil Wiggins achieved worldwide acclaim over three decades as one half of the premier Piedmont blues duo of Cephas & Wiggins. He is a two-time winner of the prestigious WC Handy award and was honored with both the National Endowment of the Arts 2017 National Heritage Fellowship and the 2021 Maryland Heritage Award, both the most prestigious awards for traditional arts.
One of the brightest young talents to emerge in Cajun, Creole and Zydeco (Louisiana French) music over the last decade, Cedric Watson is a four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, singer, accordionist & songwriter with seemingly unlimited potential. Cedric made his first appearance at the age of 19 at the Zydeco Jam at The Big Easy in Houston, TX. Just two years later, he moved to south Louisiana, quickly immersing himself in French music and language. Over the next several years, Cedric performed French music in 17 countries and on 7 full-length albums with various groups, including the Pine Leaf Boys, several others, and with his own group, Bijou Creole.
Blues is at the center of Corey, Phil and Cedric’s artistry, and the blues takes center stage in this True Blues concert.
| Buy tickets |
| | Apr 15, 2023
La Dame Blanche – Cuban-born Parisian on flute, percussion, & vocals with electronica, cumbian, dancehall & reggae vibes
Cuban singer, flautist and percussionist, Yaite Ramos Rodriguez, aka La Dame Blanche, delivers a powerful and compelling sound which summons the spirits. The smoke of an inaugural cigar prior to setting foot on set, a glass of rum left backstage, necklaces, white flowers, a pristine turban: for her appearances on stage, La Dame Blanche feeds the energy of the spirits of Santeria, her Afro-Cuban religion.
In real life, away from the limelight, this singer, flautist and percussionist is Yaite Ramos Rodriguez… A mischievous response during a conversation reveals her character: a slender and diaphanous figure, a legend who haunts nocturnal roads and the imagination of children all over the world. Before unfurling her costume. Yaite has travelled a long and sometimes hard road. Everything starts in Cuba where she was born, in the heart of an awe-inspiring musical cauldron on which reigns the figure of her father, Jesus “Aguaje” Ramos, an exceptional trombonist who is also the artistic director of the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club.
Family parties are gatherings of extraordinary musicians, the cream of Cuban music, to the sounds of thousands of songs and drums. Yaite learns how to play the classical flute at the conservatoire, and dreams of herself standing in front of a black pulpit wearing a demure dress. But then love strikes and takes her to Paris, the city of lights, the city of every sound. She says: “In my country, popular music was focused primarily on tradition: the sound, la rumba, the batá drums, etc. In Paris, all borders being open, there was a melting-pot of rhythms and melodies!” There Yaite sings in the all-girl salsa band Rumbana, joins the Grand Orchestre du Splendid, becomes back-up singer with Sergent Garcia and live singer for El Hijo de la Cumbia… Those experiences added to her emancipation from the family heritage to develop her own language, that of La Dame Blanche. That root of her signature style, played out while remaining feminine and from the tips of claws, gets entangled with merry and wild offshoots of reggae, dancehall, cumbia, moombathon etc. Finally, on that sonic jungle organised in her image, land the agile, celestial and anchored threnodies of her flute, with classical accents and sometimes Indian colours.
Expect the unexpected from La Dame Blanche, and the eclectic Under the Beams concert series! | Buy tickets |
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Information
Ticket Pricing:
Adult: $ 35
Student: $ 15
Fees: $5 Per Order
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