Performances

Come on down every Friday night from 6 to 10 for a valley open mic at The IngleBean Coffee House.

Join us for a performance of Essence II, State College’s magnificent and award-winning choir, directed by Dr. Anthony Leach. Organized in August, 1999, Essence 2 is an outreach opportunity for persons interested in performing sacred and secular music from the African and African American tradition. Essence of Joy, a choral organization in the Penn State School of Music, serves as inspiration for the interchange of campus and community participants.

Concert Night with talented musicians from the area. Immerse yourself in music that touches the soul! This is a donation based event. Give what you can.

This special concert will feature double bassist Hilliard Greene. He will highlight in words and music the significance of the remarkable songs associated with the Underground Railroad. He will discuss and perform with jazz improvisation the coded spirituals that helped runaway slaves escape capture. Hilliard Greene is touring with this program during Black History Month. He performs and teaches in the New York area and has performed and recorded with many jazz and other musicians. He will be joined in several pieces by his friend and local flutist, Cathy Herrera.

Direct from Kiev
The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
Volodymyr Sirenko, artistic director and chief conductor
Volodymyr Vynnytsky, pianist

The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine is one of the finest ensembles of its kind in eastern Europe. The orchestra, founded in 1918, has performed world premieres by Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, and other prestigious composers. Since 1993, the orchestra has recorded more than 100 albums, two of which were nominated for Grammy Awards.

“This is an orchestra with many virtues,” writes a reviewer for the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald. “Its strings can conjure up a vibrant songfulness; the woodwinds have a fruity, penetrating ripeness; the brass could endanger the walls of Jericho; the percussion might wake the dead.”

In its premiere performance at Eisenhower Auditorium, the orchestra’s program will include Kupalo of Kyiv Rus by contemporary Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych; Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring soloist Volodymyr Vynnytsky; and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98.

Ukrainian pianist Vynnytsky, laureate of the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris, has performed with leading orchestras and in solo recitals at many of the world’s prominent concert halls. “The pianist is simply superb,” writes a reviewer for American Record Guide. He has had visiting faculty posts at various universities and is now the director of chamber music at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.

Volodymyr Sirenko, also a native of Ukraine, has been artistic director and chief conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine since 1999. Off the stage, he is a professor of opera and symphonic conducting at the National Music Academy of Ukraine.

ACM, CMA and CMT Award-winning artist Luke Combs will kick off his “What You See Is What You Get Tour” next year with newly confirmed stop at the Bryce Jordan Center February 13th.

TICKET PRICES
$25 - $65

Kronos Quartet
and Mahsa Vahdat
Music for Change: The Banned Countries

As a direct protest to the Executive Orders limiting travel to the United States by people from largely Muslim majority countries, Kronos Quartet will perform a program featuring music that highlights the rich diversity of artistic voices from Muslim-majority countries. The ensemble will be joined by Iranian vocalist Mahsa Vahdat for a special set of music from their recent collaboration album Placeless.

“As the most far-ranging ensemble geographically, nationally, and stylistically the world has known, the Kronos was easily within its comfort zone,” a Los Angeles Times reviewer writes about a Music for Change performance. “… This was a journey of discovery for which the audience couldn’t quite be prepared. One listened with wonderment.”

For forty-six years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington and John Sherba (violins), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello)—has combined a spirit of exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than sixty recordings, collaborating with many of the most accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet.

Kronos appears at the most prestigious concert halls, clubs, and festivals. The ensemble is equally prolific and wide-ranging on recordings, including two Grammy-winning albums—Landfall with Laurie Anderson (2018) and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite featuring Dawn Upshaw (2003). Other recent releases include Ladilikan with Trio Da Kali, an ensemble of Malian griot musicians assembled by Aga Khan Music Initiative, and Clouded Yellow by Bang on the Can founding composer Michael Gordon.

Vahdat, a native of Tehran, is a prominent performer of Persian vocal music and an advocate of freedom of expression. Her career has given a deeper knowledge about Iranian poetry and music to audiences across five continents. While her style is based on the Persian vocal traditions of classical and regional folk music, she sings with a contemporary expression. She composes most of her songs, typically using poems by classical writers such as Hafez and Rumi or contemporary ones like Fourogh Farokhzad and Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari.

After the concert, the musicians will engage in a discussion with audience members.

Since 2006, the Pure Cane Sugar girls, Kate and Natty, have delivered exquisite vocal performances with sultry voices, soulful harmonies, and powerful lyrics. They are “an assemblage of masterful melodies and haunting harmonies that inspire sweet dreams”. With rooted accompanying artists Daryl Branford on drums, Brian Cleary on guitar, and Bob Hart on bass, their original, artful arrangements are captured on a backdrop of textured synergy and rhythm.

Apollo’s Fire
The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered
Jeannette Sorrell, conductor

In its sixth appearance at Schwab Auditorium, Apollo’s Fire will perform Antonio Vivaldi’s beloved concertos as the revolutionary acts of musical storytelling they were meant to be. Four Seasons Rediscovered will bring Vivaldi’s pictorial descriptions to life. Thought you knew the Four Seasons? Prepare for surprises!

From the bird calls and storms to a barking dog, flies and wasps, drunken peasants, an exhilarating fox hunt with “gunshots,” and more, the story that Vivaldi intended with these pieces is made clear as each concerto is preceded by a quick and polished “tour” of the sound effects to come. The virtuoso musicians of Apollo’s Fire take turns stepping into the spotlight as a different soloist leads each concerto.

The program will also feature dueling cellists in Vivaldi’s stormy Concerto for Two Cellos. Hear why Artistic Director and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell calls Vivaldi the “rock ’n’ roll composer of the eighteenth century.”

Named for the classical god of music and the sun, Apollo’s Fire, founded by Sorrell, revived the Baroque ideal that music should evoke the listeners’ passions. The ensemble is a collection of artists who share Sorrell’s passion for drama and rhetoric. London’s The Independent hails Apollo’s Fire as “one of the pre-eminent period-instrument ensembles.”

Artistic Viewpoints will not be offered before this concert.

Dweezil Zappa and his “rocking teenage combo” will be performing his father’s entire Hot Rats album in sequence live on stage as part of his upcoming 2019 tour. The album played a pivotal role in establishing Frank Zappa as a composer and guitarist and was also dedicated to Dweezil upon its release in 1969. Then 50-year-old classic album will be surrounded by an assortment of other psychedelic, avant-garde odd metered toe tappers well known to Zappa aficionados. Don’t miss out on Dweezil Zappa’s DNA audio stage recreation of Hot Rats and other “Hot Stuff”!

Full list of tour dates & ticketing links can be found on Dweezil’s Official Website.

Official Website: https://www.dweezilzappa.com/
Official Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/DweezilZappaOfficial/
Twitter: @DweezilZappa – Instagram: DweezilZappa

The public is invited to a free Lenten concert called Behold, How Good: Sounds of Unity on Wednesday, March 25, at Grace Lutheran Church, 205 South Garner Street in downtown State College. The program will include Kyrie settings by Sergei Rachmaninoff, William Byrd, and Orlando Gibbons; Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass with jazz combo; Michael John Trotta’s Behold, How Good; and selections played by hand bell choir. The Window: A Kyrie for Notre Dame is an original work by Laurel Sanders that was inspired by the fire at Notre Dame cathedral on April 15, 2019. It was composed as an expression of unity, remembering when Parisians responded to 9/11 by sounding the cathedral’s ancient bells as a sign of support for grieving Americans after our own national tragedies. A community supper will be offered starting at 5:15. Piano prelude music is at 6:40, played by Victoria Petrosky, and the one-hour concert starts at 7 pm. For more information, contact Laurel Sanders at [email protected] or call 814-238-2478.

Fans of Sidewalk Prophets will have 24 reasons to smile this spring as the band launches the “Smile Tour” in 2020 in support of its latest single. Sidewalk Prophets unveils 24 tour dates. Delivering their best live show to date, on the “Smile Tour,” Sidewalk Prophets will host an evening full of hits and new music that will leave concert goers feeling re-energized and grinning from ear to ear.

Three-time GRAMMY winner Shawn Colvin’s debut album, Steady On, was released in October 1989, a stunning introduction to an artist who quickly established herself as a mainstay in the singer-songwriter genre. The album was lauded for its confessional songwriting and well-crafted melodies, and for Colvin’s tender and provocative vocals. Colvin received the ultimate acknowledgement for Steady On when she was awarded the GRAMMY award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. She swiftly amassed a dedicated and passionate fanbase.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of this landmark album, Colvin has released a newly-recorded solo-acoustic version. Colvin brings a 30-year lens to her treasured songs, casting new light on the stories she first told as a young artist. Colvin has long been hailed as an exemplary solo acoustic performer and these new recordings are a brilliant showcase for her enduring artistry.

“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.”

Steady On Acoustic strips each song to the core, placing Colvin’s songwriting masterclass on full display. “I’ve played these songs countless times, primarily as a solo acoustic artist,” she says. “All in all, this is the incarnation that feels most genuine. 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, and I believe it does its predecessor proud.”

Over the course of three decades, Colvin has established herself as a legacy artist by creating a remarkable canon of work, touring relentlessly both nationally and internationally, and having her songs featured in television and film. She is a revered storyteller deserving of the special recognition of both her peers and those who have been inspired by her songs. The reworking of her iconic debut feels not only timely but essential, further underscoring that Colvin remains a vital voice for women in music and reaffirming her status as an Americana gamechanger.

Shawn Colvin will perform Steady On Acoustic in its entirety in what promises to be a very special evening for her longtime fans.