HAIR

Saturday, April 27, 8PM, Concert Hall
Winner! Best Musical Revival 2009 Tony Award!

This exuberant musical about a group of young Americans searching for peace and love in a turbulent time has struck a resonant chord with audiences young and old. Hair features an extraordinary cast and unforgettable songs, including “Aquarius,” “Let the Sun Shine In,” “Good Morning, Starshine” and “Easy To Be Hard.” Its relevance is undeniable. Its energy is unbridled. Its truth is unwavering. It’s Hair, and it’s time. “Irresistible. The best version yet!” – Peter Marks, The Washington Post. “If this explosive production doesn’t stir something in you, it may be time to check your pulse.” - Variety
(Advisory: contains brief nudity and mature subject matter.) 

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$60, $50, $25; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $20

DENMAN MARONEY QUINTET Ned Rothenberg, Dave Ballou, Reuben Radding, Michael Sarin Thursday, April 25, 8PM, Bezanson Recital Hall “There are few minds as agile and inquiring as that of pianist, composer and educator Denman Maroney,” writes Mark Medwin. “Over nearly 40 years, he has managed to rethink the piano’s vocabulary, creating a readily identifiable language on the instrument. He calls his contribution “hyperpiano,” a method of playing inside the piano that is characterized by a dizzying and diverse pallet of sonorities that make the instrument into an orchestra. He has also developed an equally unique compositional language. Yet, there is a directness, at times almost a simplicity, in his music.”

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General Admission: $12; $7 students

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt & Subhen Chatterji
Friday, April 12, 8PM, Concert Hall, Chamber Seating

Credited for inventing the Mohan Veena (slide guitar,) Grammy Award winner Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is hailed as one of the greatest and most expressive slide guitar players in the world. As the principal disciple of Ravi Shankar, Vishwa plays with blinding speed and faultless legato. Subhen Chatterjee on tabla, studied under the illustrious tabla maestro Swapan Chowdhury.  Today, Subhen is one of the few tabla players that have participated regularly in the WOMAD festival founded by Peter Gabriel and has collaborated with flautist Paul Horn and David Crosby.

$30, $25, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

“Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is the king of Slide guitar” – Boston Globe

IMAGO: ZOOZOO

Thursday, April 11, 7:30PM, Concert Hall
Imago Theatre’s shows have been described as Cirque Du Soleil-evoking acrobatics mixed with Mummenschanz-like mime, set in a unique yet accessible French-influenced avant-garde playground. Quite a picture that conjures! Imagine all of that with penguins playing musical chairs, a cat trapped in a giant paper bag, hippos with insomnia, anteaters as waiters, and a madcap revue of illusion. That’s Zoo Zoo, the critically acclaimed mix of dance, design, circus, music, text and illusion that has inspired audiences nationwide.

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$30, $25, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

“Theater like this opens the eyes to the possibilities of exploration in the vast realm of imagination.”

– New York Times

PANDIT VISHWA MOHAN BHATT & SUBHEN CHATTERJI
Friday, April 12, 8PM, Chamber Concert Hall

Grammy Award winner Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is hailed as one of the greatest and most expressive slide players in the world. As the principal disciple of Ravi Shankar, Vishwa belongs to the elite set of musicians who trace their lineage to the Mughals. Credited for the invention of Mohan Veena, Vishwa plays with blinding speed and faultless legato and is undoubtedly one of the most versatile and greatest slide players in the world. Subhen Chatterjee performing the tabla, studied under the illustrious tabla maestro Swapan Chowdhury.  Today, Subhen is one of the few tabla players that have participated regularly in the WOMAD festival founded by Peter Gabriel and has collaborated with flautist Paul Horn and David Crosby.

$30, $25, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

For more information please visit our website at https://fac.umass.edu/online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=4E3064FC-B9B9-4289-B32E-28DC01CEF082

DAVE SAMUELS AND THE CARRIBEAN JAZZ PROJECT
Saturday, April 6, 8PM, Bowker Auditorium

Conceived by Dave Samuels, the Grammy Award winning Caribbean Jazz Project is a vibrant and unique mixture of jazz, Afro-Cuban and South American music. The Caribbean Jazz Project remains one of the most thoroughly inventive Latin Jazz ensembles of this or any era.  

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$30, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

“A distinctly refreshing combination of sunny, sensuous and eminently danceable Latin jazz grooves.” – The Washington Post

Wednesday, April 3, 7:30PM, Bowker Auditorium

Ranging from the sweet sounds of the Oud to pop and driving Rai-rock, the Arab North African Spring highlights the full range of Arab music combining the best known male and female young musicians from Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon on tour as one ensemble. These musicians are the embodiment of a new generation of Arab and Arab-American artists, a generation that not only brings together elements of both cultures in their music/lyrics, but also creates a new brand of music that is uniquely hip and equally innovative – music that is neither Westernized Arabic nor Arabized Western, but something brand new. With a focus on the ideas of “us” and “today,” these songs speak for freedom and choices.

$30, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

For more information please visit our website

HARRISON BANKHEAD QUARTET

Ed Wilkerson, Jr., Mars Williams, Avreeayl Ra.

Thursday, March 28, 8PM, Bezanson Recital Hall

The Chicago jazz bassist Harrison Bankhead combines an appreciation for musical challenges, with a journeyman’s ability to fit in an array of styles from straight-ahead to free jazz, flamenco to classical, gospel to soul. “Harrison Bankhead has been about as ubiquitous on the local scene as a jazz musician can be,” writes Peter Margasak. “Over the past couple decades he’s amassed a discography that includes dozens of credits, backing countless Chicago heavies—Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Muhal Richard Abrams, Malachi Thompson—and serving as a key member in groups like 8 Bold Souls, Indigo Trio, Frequency, and Witches & Devils. He’s the kind of selfless musician who makes just about everyone he plays with sound better.”   

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General Admission: $12; $7 students

Thursday, March 14, 7:30PM, Concert Hall
The Joffrey Ballet, the celebrated Chicago-based dance company, has put together a memorable lineup of works for its national tour.  Luckily for us the tour includes Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), the reenactment of a sacrificial fertility rite, which inspired audience members to storm the streets of Paris following its 1913 debut.  Set to the strident, now classic, commissioned Stravinsky score, The Rite of Spring stands as one of the most magnificent musical and dance masterpieces of the twentieth century.

$50, $40, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

For more information please visit our website at https://fac.umass.edu/online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=DAD007C2-6653-4B92-B11F-5E07B20E8B9C

Bowker Auditorium

This exciting, live multi-media “informance” celebrates the groundbreaking achievements of the iconic trumpeter, bandleader, and cultural provocateur, Miles Davis.  The program traverses Davis’ extensive career and features music from some of the most creatively fertile periods of his career, including his controversial divergence into electric music in the late 1960s.

Using both, jazz history, and 20th-century American history as a backdrop, Miles Davis and the Blue Flame Incident (which alludes to one of Davis’ earliest childhood memories) will engage, inform, and enlighten audiences about one of the most compelling, infinitely creative, and trailblazing artists the world has ever known. 

General Admission: $15; Five College, GCC. STCC and 17 and Under: $7

Metta Quintet is the official resident ensemble of JazzReach Performing Arts & Education Association, Inc. In addition to fulfilling the organization’s endeavors in arts education, Metta Quintet is dedicated exclusively to commissioning, recording, and performing all-new works. 

A highly creative unit comprised of some of today’s fastest emerging jazz artists, Metta Quintet aims to establish itself in the vanguard of contemporary music ensembles as a unique, dynamic voice committed to exploring exciting new artistic territory and the infinite boundaries of the live jazz experience.

The Metta Quintet is H. Benjamin Schuman, drums and founder of JazzReach, Inc.; David Bryant, piano; Marcus Strickland, tenor saxophone; Mark Gross, alto saxophone; Joshua Ginsburg, bass.

What is an Informance?

An informance is an educational performance that includes live narration, some demonstration, integrated video projections, live music featuring the Metta Quintet, and special guests and a post-show Q&A with the artists.

What is JazzReach? 

Established in 1994, JazzReach is a nationally recognized New York City-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, performance, creation and teaching of jazz music. Through the presentation of innovative, widely acclaimed live multi-media educational programs for young audiences, captivating main-stage concerts for general audiences and informative clinics and master-classes for student musicians and ensembles, JazzReach is steadfastly dedicated to fostering a greater appreciation, awareness and understanding of this rich, vital, ever-evolving American art form.

JazzReach has developed a unique and diverse repertoire of substantive, high quality live educational programs for young and adult audiences.  All of JazzReach’s educational programs are highly immersive and interactive and are as entertaining as they are informative and actively engage audiences in an analysis of:

• the cultural factors that have come together to make jazz such a compelling art form
• the social conditions that shaped the music’s development
• the immense impact jazz has had on the sound and evolution of indigenous American music

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