Rhiannon Giddens tours Northeast, performs on A+E's Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America, PBS's Americana Honors & Awards special … Ry Cooder is at UNC with Sharon White, Ricky Skaggs … Jeremy Denk joins violinist Stefan Jackiw, New York Polyphony in NYC … Tigran Hamasyan, James Farm tour France … Lake Street Dive close out "Memory Lane" tour in Cambridge … Brad Mehldau Trio tours Europe … Chris Thile concludes US solo tour … and more …
Rhiannon Giddens concludes her tour of the US Northeast with a show at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Deleware, tonight. She joins Josh Goforth, The Branchettes, and Balsam Range for David Holt’s State of Music Live at the Bardo Arts Center in Cullowhee, North Carolina, on Sunday.
Fans across the United States can see Giddens perform on the A+E Networks’ Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America, tonight at 8 PM. The two-hour special event, recorded earlier this week in Los Angeles, will air across A+E Networks, including A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, H2, LMN, and FYI, as well as the top 150 iHeartRadio music stations in the United States. Giddens will join artists like Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, Jamie Foxx, John Legend, Miguel, Pink, Jill Scott, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and Pharrell Williams for the event, including a once-in-a-lifetime series of duets, focused on creating reconciliation and positive change in local communities.
Rhiannon Giddens can also be seen on PBS stations across the US as she performs on the Austin City Limits special with highlights from the Americana Honors & Awards show held at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville earlier this fall (picture above). She gives a show-stopping performance of “Waterboy,” from her debut solo album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. Also performing on the show is Ry Cooder, with Sharon White and Ricky Skaggs. The special episode premieres on Saturday.
Also on PBS this weekend, Giddens can be seen on Craft in America: Music, which focuses on how fine handmade instruments are crafted, and the world-renowned artists who play them. She will discuss her handmade banjo and perform, as will Joan Baez, Count Basie Orchestra Director Scotty Barnhart, banjo master and North Carolina native Tony Ellis, L.A. Philharmonic timpanist Joseph Pereira and ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro.
Giddens releases a five-song vinyl EP, Factory Girl, at local record shops next Friday for Record Store Day Black Friday.
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The Arcs, who recently closed out their fall European tour, are the guests on BBC Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary show Saturday at 3 PM GMT. Tune in then to hear the band or listen online at bbc.co.uk. The band’s North American tour begins December 1 in Minneapolis.
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Ry Cooder, Sharon White, and Ricky Skaggs bring their Cooder-White-Skaggs tour to a close for the calendar year, with shows at Memorial Hall at UNC Chapel Hill tonight and the Peace Center for the Performing Arts in Greenville, South Carolina, tomorrow. The tour resumes at Thalia Hall in Chicago in late January.
The New York Times’s Nate Chinen, reviewing the group’s show in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York last weekend, says it was a “roots-music celebration … conveying a sense of rare, joyous occasion.”
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Jeremy Denk joins violinist Stefan Jackiw and the New York Polyphony vocal ensemble to perform works by Charles Ives and more at the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y in New York, on Saturday.
The Telegraph recently praised Denk’s “jaw-dropping virtuosity,” adding that, in his hands, “the piano always seems a musical time-machine, capable of transmitting any style and period.”
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Tigran Hamasyan Trio, with Sam Minaie on bass and Arthur Hnatek on drums, continues its tour of Europe with three shows in France, at the Odyssud in Blagnac tonight, Espace Hean Monnet – Salle Lino Venter in Athis-Mons on Saturday, and Les Treize Arches in Brive-la-Gaillarde on Sunday.
Hamasyan released his Nonesuch debut, Mockroot, featuring the Trio, earlier this year.
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James Farm, the acoustic jazz quartet featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland, round out their tour of Europe and the UK with two shows in France, at Salle des Fêtes in Schiltigheim, as part of the Jazzdor Festival, tonight and Opera de Rouen in Rouen on Saturday.
The Guardian gave the group’s recent performance at the London Jazz Festival four stars, saying it delivered a performance with “thrillingly balanced storytelling, space, virtuosic intricacy and controlled power.” The Telegraph gave the performance four stars as well, praising Redman’s playing as “elegant and beautifully turned out,” adding that, his “sense of raw energy pushing through a taut, controlled surface was shared by the whole quartet, which is truly a gathering of equals … If jazz has a centre any more, this quartet’s wonderful interplay is surely where it can be found.”
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Lake Street Dive closes out its intimate “Memory Lane Tour” not far from where the group first met as students at Boston’s New England Conservatory, with a sold-out show at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge tonight.
As previously reported in the Nonesuch Journal, the band will release its label debut, Side Pony, on February 19. The record is currently available for pre-order via iTunes and the Nonesuch Store. Tickets for the band’s 2016 North American and European tours are on sale now.
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The Brad Mehldau Trio—with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums—kicked off its two-week tour of Europe this week, playing two shows in the Netherlands this weekend, first at Bimhuis in Amsterdam tonight and then at De Doelen in Rotterdam on Saturday, followed by a set at Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sunday.
NBC San Diego, reviewing the trio’s show in La Jolla last week, called it “triumphant,” “graceful,” and “truly magical.”
Mehldau’s recently released 10 Years Solo Live box set was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered this week, where host Ari Shapiro called Mehldau “one of modern music’s most innovative thinkers.” Critic Tom Moon praised his “fluid technique, his instinct for reframing melodies, his gift for spinning epic narratives out of shards and fragments. Here's what's most mind-blowing: he's doing this live, in the moment, unscripted, in front of an audience.” You can listen to the complete review here.
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Chris Thile concludes his month-long solo tour of the United States with shows at The Batte Center in Wingate, North Carolina, tonight, the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts in Storrs, Connecticut, tomorrow, and the May Performing Arts Center in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday.
Thile will join his fellow Punch Brothers for a two-week tour next month, before closing out the year with a duo show with label mate Brad Mehldau at the Bowery Ballroom in New York on December 28.
The new Punch Brothers EP, The Wireless, is out today.
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