The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents 3 WOMEN
2023-01-19 13:00 - 15:30 (America/Chicago) | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents 3 WOMEN at Crosstown Theater.
Robert Altman / 1977 / 124 minutes / PG
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
In a dusty, underpopulated California resort town, a naive Southern waif, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), idolizes and befriends her fellow nurse, the would-be sophisticate and “thoroughly modern” Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall). When Millie takes Pinky in as her roommate, Pinky’s hero worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, this dreamlike masterpiece from Robert Altman careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
2023-01-26 13:00 - 15:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 at Crosstown Theater.
John Carpenter / 1976 / 91 minutes / R
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
New 4k restoration! This stark modern homage to Howard Hawk’s Rio Bravo updates the action with a youth gang attacking a closing police station in a blighted ghetto neighborhood. Rapid-fire banter flies fast and furious between charismatic convict (Darwin Joston) and policewoman (Laurie Zimmer) as the faceless, virtually supernatural marauders attack. This remains one of Carpenter’s most effective pictures, an edge-of-your-seat thriller that put him on the map as an imaginative, creative force to be reckoned with! – Deaf Crocodile.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents ALMA’S RAINBOW
2023-02-02 13:00 - 15:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents ALMA’S RAINBOW at Crosstown Theater.
Ayoka Chenzira / 1994 / 85 minutes / Not Rated
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Almas’s Rainbow is a coming-of-age comedy/drama about three Black women living in Brooklyn. Ayoka Chenzira’s feature film explores the life of teenager Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt) who is entering womanhood and navigating conversations and experiences around standards of beauty, self-image, and the rights of Black women have over their bodies. Rainbow attends a strict parochial school, studies dance, and is just becoming aware of boys. She lives with her strait-laced mother Alma Gold ( Kim Weston-Moran), who runs a hair salon in the parlor of their home. When Alma’s free-spirited sister Ruby (Mizan Kirby) arrives from Paris after a 10-year absence, the sisters clash over what constitutes the “proper” direction Rainbow’s life should take. Alma has fooled herself into believing she has no need of male companionship and advises her to daughter to follow her example. Ruby encourages both her niece and her sister to embrace life — and love — fully and joyfully. Almas’s Rainbow highlights a multi-layered Black women’s world where characters live, love, and wrestle with what it means to exercise and exert their agency.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Shoot & Splice: Short Film Case Studies
2023-02-07 13:00 - 14:30
Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts present Shoot & Splice: Short Film Case Studies in Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Show begins at 7 pm
Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts are excited to present a case study of the 2022 Indie Memphis Film Festival Hometowner award-winning short films, “Nordo” (Best Narrative Short) and “What We’ll Never Know” (Best Documentary Short). Directors Kyle Taubken (Nordo) and Lauren Ready (What We’ll Never Know) will share insights and stories from each stage of the production process — from early development to production and into festival distribution.
The case studies will also feature screenings of both short films.
Shoot & Splice is a FREE filmmaker forum presented by Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis, featuring a wide variety of technical, educational, and unique topics of interest to the Memphis filmmaking community.

Iris Collective: Intersections
2023-02-09 13:30 - 15:30
Crosstown Theater
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Show begins at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $35 | $30 in advance
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
In partnership with Iris Collective, Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Randall Goosby and New York Times “Best of 2021” pianist Zhu Wang will perform with Iris musicians celebrating music’s capacity to connect us to our past and families. This chamber concert will feature music by Black and living Chinese composers.
https://iriscollective.org/intersections

Juilliard String Quartet
2023-02-12 09:00 - 11:00
Concerts International and The Memphis Chamber Music Society present the Juilliard String Quartet at Crosstown Theater in collaboration with Crosstown Arts.
Crosstown Theater
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Show at 3 pm
Tickets: $55 General Admission | $10 student tickets
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Program:
Beethoven, String Quartet No. 16 in F, Op. 135
Ravel, Quartet in F Major
Dvořák, String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105
“The Juilliard String Quartet can plausibly be called the most important American quartet in history. … Some groups seem to wrestle with their past and legacy; the Juilliard seems completely revitalized. … It may be just hitting its stride.” — The Boston Globe
With unparalleled artistry and enduring vigor, the Juilliard String Quartet (JSQ) continues to inspire audiences around the world. Founded in 1946 and hailed by The Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history,” the ensemble draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics, while embracing the mission of championing new works, a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Each performance of the Juilliard String Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound understanding, total commitment, and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature.
Molly Carr joins the JSQ as violist in May 2022 — following in the footsteps of her late mentor, Roger Tapping — to close out the 2021-22 season, which marks the Juilliard String Quartet’s 75th anniversary. Performances of the season include cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Detroit as well as a European tour including stops in Berlin, Dresden, and Essen. A special highlight of the upcoming 2022-23 season is the premiere of two string quartets by celebrated German composer Jörg Widmann to perform alongside late quartets by Beethoven.
Adding to its celebrated discography, an album of works by Beethoven, Bartók, and Dvořák was released by Sony Classical in April 2021 to critical acclaim. Additionally, Sony Masterworks released a JSQ catalog release (The Early Juilliard Recordings) in June 2021. In the fall of 2018, the JSQ released an album on Sony featuring the world premiere recording of Mario Davidovsky’s Fragments (2016), together with Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 95 and Bartók’s Quartet No. 1. Additionally, Sony Classical’s 2014 reissue of the Juilliard Quartet’s landmark recordings of the first four Elliott Carter String Quartets along with the 2013 recording of Carter’s fifth quartet traces a remarkable period in the evolution of both the composer and the ensemble. The quartet’s recordings of the Bartók and Schoenberg Quartets, as well as those of Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven, have won Grammy Awards, and in 2011 the JSQ became the first classical music ensemble to receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Devoted master teachers, the members of the Juilliard String Quartet offer classes and open rehearsals when on tour. The JSQ is string quartet in residence at The Juilliard School and its members are all sought-after teachers on the string and chamber music faculties. Each May, they host the five-day internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar. During the summer, the JSQ works closely on string quartet repertoire with Fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center.
About the Artists:
Areta Zhulla | 1st Violin
Praised by the critics for her “rare emotional sensitivity and internal articulation,” Greek violinist Areta Zhulla has gained recognition as a passionate and poetic artist. She has been recently named “Young Artist of the Year” by the National Critics Association in Greece and is a recipient of the prestigious Triandi Career Grant as well as the Tassos Prassopoulos Foundation Award. In 2018, Ms. Zhulla joined the Juilliard String Quartet as their first violinist and serves on the violin and chamber music faculties at The Juilliard School.
Ms. Zhulla has appeared as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Asia, at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Alice Tully Hall, Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and National Arts Centre of Canada. Ms. Zhulla was a member of Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center, where she performed and toured regularly with some of today’s most acclaimed artists. Memorable collaborations include performances with Itzhak Perlman at Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center, as well as collaborations with legendary conductor Michel Plasson, Pinchas Zukerman, Gary Hoffman, Gilbert Kalish, Colin Carr, and members of the Cleveland, Emerson, and Cavani String Quartets. Her performances have been broadcast on PBS “Live from Lincoln Center,” The Kennedy Center Honors, and on WQXR, among other radio stations throughout the world.
A passionate educator, Ms. Zhulla has served as teaching assistant to Itzhak Perlman at Juilliard for the past two years. She is on the violin and chamber music faculties at Juilliard’s Pre-College division, and serves as chamber music faculty at the prestigious Perlman Music Program, of which she is an alumna. Ms. Zhulla is Artistic Director of the newly formed Perlman-Genesis Violin Project, a series of workshops at the Tel-Aviv Conservatory in Israel.
Ms. Zhulla holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School in New York City, where she studied with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho, and was a recipient of the Vergotis Scholarship. Other teachers include Pinchas Zukerman, Patinka Kopec, and her father, Lefter Zhulla.
Ronald Copes | Violin
Praised by audiences and critics alike for his insightful artistry, violinist Ronald Copes has received international acclaim as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Having appeared as a featured performer in the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Bermuda, Cheltenham, Colorado and Olympic music festivals, Mr. Copes has toured extensively with Music From Marlboro ensembles, the Los Angeles and Dunsmuir Piano Quartets, and, since 1997, with the Juilliard String Quartet in concerts throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. During the 2011-13 seasons, he and Seymour Lipkin performed cycles of the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and the Juilliard School.
He has recorded numerous solo and chamber music works for radio and television broadcast as well as for labels including Sony Classical, Orion, CRI, Klavier, Bridge, New World Records, ECM and the Musical Heritage Society. Devoting considerable energy to the development and presentation of contemporary string literature, he has worked closely with composers including Stephen Hartke and Donald Crockett, and has given the first performances of solo and chamber works by Stephen Dembski and Robert Kraft, among others. With the New York New Music Ensemble, he recorded Ralph Shapey’s Three for Six, and was presented in solo recital by the International Society of Contemporary Music in New York.
Mr. Copes has garnered prizes in several national and international competitions including the Artists’ Advisory Council International Competition, the Merriweather Post Competition and the Concours International d’Exécution Musicale in Geneva. For two decades, he served as Professor of Violin at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and, in 1997, joined the faculty of The Juilliard School, where he serves as chair of the violin department. With the JSQ and individually, Mr. Copes has coached string quartets and given master classes at Juilliard, Tanglewood and on tour. During the summer he is on the artist-faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival.
Molly Carr | Viola
Violist Molly Carr enjoys a diverse musical career as recitalist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. Hailed as “one of the most interesting interpreters of the viola today” (Codalario Spain) and praised for her “intoxicating” (The New York Times) and “ravishing” (The Strad) performances, she has been the recipient of numerous international awards, including the Primrose International Viola Competition, Chamber Music America, ProMusicis Foundation, and the Davidson Institute. In 2018, she was honored at the United Nations for her work with refugees, named by the Sandi Klein Show as one of America’s leading “Creative Women,” and awarded the ProMusicis International Father Eugène Merlet Award for Community Service for her work in prisons as the Founding Director for Project: Music Heals Us, a non-profit which brings free chamber music performances and interactive programming to marginalized populations with limited ability to access the Arts themselves. Her performances have taken her across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as on PBS, CNN, NPR, and BBC World News. She is the violist of the Juilliard String Quartet and the Carr-Petrova Duo, and serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Bard College Conservatory.
Astrid Schween | Cello
Cellist Astrid Schween has gained a rich following and enjoys a varied career as a soloist, chamber artist and teacher. Since joining the Juilliard String Quartet in 2016, she has appeared at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, Yamaha Hall in Tokyo, and in Hong Kong, Singapore, Greece, China, Spain, Scandinavia and throughout the US, with concerts at the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, New York’s 92nd Street Y, Ravinia, Tanglewood and the Kennedy Center. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Astrid Schween received her training under the guidance of Leonard Rose, Harvey Shapiro, Bernard Greenhouse, Ardyth Alton and Dr. H.T. Ma, and was mentored as a young cellist by Jacqueline Du Pré and Zubin Mehta. She participated in the Marlboro Music Festival, the William Pleeth Cello Master Classes in Aldeburgh and made her debut at the age of 16 with the New York Philharmonic.
This season, Astrid Schween will appear as soloist-special guest artist at the Violoncello Society of New York, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Cleveland Cello Society, Gather NYC, Aronson Cello Festival and in Minneapolis at the 20th Biennial Suzuki Association of the Americas Conference. In the spring, she will host a special event in honor of the Guarneri String Quartet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other recent solo engagements have taken her around the US, with a performance of the Elgar Concerto in Boulder, CO last season and performances with the Memphis Symphony and at the Peninsula, Interlochen and Sewanee festivals. Astrid Schween was recently featured in Strings and Strad magazines, on various NPR programs, and was a guest speaker on Women in Music at the Library of Congress. She also appears on classical music internet platforms such as “Living the Classical Life,” The Violin Channel and CelloBello. Her current collaborations include frequent appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, recitals with pianists Victor Asuncion, Randall Hodgkinson and a soon-to-be-released CD of Romantic cello sonatas with pianist Michael Gurt. Recent collaborative releases appear on the Sony, Centaur and JRI labels.
Astrid Schween is a member of the cello faculty at Juilliard and the Perlman Music Program on Shelter Island. She was for many years, senior cello faculty at Interlochen, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mount Holyoke College. She was also cellist of the Boston Trio, a frequent guest with the Boston Chamber Music Society and a longtime member of the Lark Quartet, with whom she earned the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lockenhaus, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and other prestigious venues. Additional recordings appear on the Arabesque, Decca/Argo, New World, CRI and Point labels. She is represented by Thomas Gallant of General Arts Touring.

Microcinema: 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival Shorts Tour
2023-02-15 13:00 - 14:30
Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts present Microcinema: 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival Shorts Tour in Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Show begins at 7 pm
Tickets: Pay What You Can
Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts are honored to start off Microcinema this year with a program of shorts from the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America! This program of shorts features fascinating works from filmmakers from around the world who employ an array of approaches — an absurdist music video, a mediation on physical and mental spaces within the African Diaspora, and a video essay exploring the innocence and role of bags in post-revolution Iranian cinema.

The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents COOLEY HIGH
2023-02-16 13:00 - 15:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents COOLEY HIGH at Crosstown Theater.
Michael Shultz / 1975 / 107 minutes / PG
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Michael Schultz directed this deeply felt recollection of adolescent life on Chicago’s near North Side in 1964. Like American Graffiti, Cooley High deals with girl, school, and police troubles as a group of high school seniors prepare for post-high-school life. The chums are Glynn Turman as “Preach,” who loves to read poetry and history and wants to become a Hollywood screenwriter, but who has the worst grades in the school; and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs as Cochise, the high school basketball star and suave lady-killer. Preach has to contend with love problems in the form of Brenda (Cynthia Davis), school problems with emphatic teacher Mr. Mason (Garrett Morris), and law problems with street toughs Stone (Shermann Smith) and Robert (Norman Gibson).
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Leyla McCalla
2023-02-17 13:30 - 16:00
Crosstown Arts presents Leyla McCalla at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Friday, February 17, 2023
Doors 6:30 pm | Show 7:30 pm
Tickets: $30
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Leyla McCalla finds inspiration from her past and present, whether it is her Haitian heritage or her adopted home of New Orleans, she — a bilingual multi-instrumentalist, and alumna of Grammy award-winning African-American string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops — has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. McCalla’s music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful and witty — it vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive and contemporary, sonically blending New Orleans influences and Haitian rhythms, with lyrics sung in English, French and Haitian Creole.
McCalla’s widely-acclaimed collaborative project, Songs of Our Native Daughters (Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell), released via Smithsonian Folkways in 2019. The album pulled influence from past sources to create a reinvented slave narrative, confronting sanitized views about America’s history of slavery, racism, and misogyny from a powerful, modern Black female perspective.

The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI
2023-02-23 13:00 - 15:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI at Crosstown Theater.
Jim Jarmusch / 1999 / 116 minutes / R
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Jim Jarmusch combined his love for the ice-cool crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville and Seijun Suzuki with the philosophical dimensions of samurai mythology for an eccentrically postmodern take on the hit-man thriller. In one of his defining roles, Forest Whitaker brings a commanding serenity to his portrayal of a Zen contract killer working for a bumbling mob outfit, a modern man who adheres steadfastly to the ideals of the Japanese warrior code even as chaos and violence spiral around him. Featuring moody cinematography by the great Robby Müller, a sublime score by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, and a host of colorful character actors (including a memorably stone-faced Henry Silva), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai plays like a pop-culture-sampling cinematic mixtape built around a one-of-a-kind tragic hero.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Memphis Symphony Orchestra: SERENADE AND SONG - THE MSO STRINGS
2023-02-24 12:30 - 14:30
Paul and Linnea Bert Classic Accents · 2
SERENADE AND SONG – THE MSO STRINGS
Friday, February 24, 2023 · 6:30 pm
Crosstown Theater
Purchase tickets here
Kalena Bovell, conductor
Marcus King, baritone
STILL Danzas de Panamá
TCHAIKOVSKY Serenade for Strings
RAVEL Mother Goose Suite
COPLAND Old American Songs
Kalena Bovell and the MSO Strings plumb the musical depths of the music for strings.

Mahogany Chamber Music Series: “Vocal Juggernauts”
2023-02-26 12:00 - 13:30
Crosstown Arts presents the Mahogany Chamber Music Series: “Vocal Juggernauts” at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Doors at 5:30 pm | Concert at 6 pm
Tickets: $20 | $5 students
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
The Mahogany Chamber Music Series is a series of three chamber music concerts curated by Dr. Artina McCain, spotlighting Black and other underrepresented composers and performers.
Featuring:
Angela Yoon, soprano
Paulina Villareal, mezzo soprano
Marcus King, tenor
Jason Terry, piano
Artina McCain, piano
Angela Yoon, soprano
Coloratura soprano Angela Yoon is known for her delightful and beautifully expansive voice and her ability to deliver texts through music. As a soprano soloist, she has been named as a winner and finalist in various competitions and has performed solos, recitals, and concerts as a guest artist throughout the United States, South Korea, Germany, Canada, and France. Her performances include a wide range of genres. She has been featured on radio broadcasts and recordings such as National Public Radio (NPR) and appeared as the soloist and principal artist in oratorios, cantatas, and operas including Poulenc’s Gloria, Phan’s Vietnamese Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Esther, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Missa Brevis St. Joannis de Deo, Willcock’s Magnificat, Allegri’s Miserere, Bach’s St. John’s Passion, and Perez-Velazquez’s Ídolos del Sueño. Her roles have included Kitty (The Last Savage), Thi Mao (The Tale of Lady Thị Kính), La fée (Cendrillon), Madame Goldentrill (Impresario), Sandman (Hansel and Gretel), the Plaintiff (Trial by Jury), and Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance).
She is interested in creating interdisciplinary musical experiences for her audiences through collaborating with other fields such as visual art, science, social justice, history, and even political science. Her current performance programs include WWI program Broken Harmony: Reconstructing Art, diversity concert program Colorful Harmony: Melodies from Near and Far, and a social justice concert program on refugee, human trafficking, marginalized youth, and undocumented immigrants entitled Songs of Hope: Unveiling Darkness. Songs of Hope will be premiered at Birmingham Museum of Art in the fall of 2022 followed by performances at Johns Hopkins University and Carnegie Hall.
She serves on the voice faculty at Belmont University, and prior to Belmont she was on the faculty at Samford University and Baylor University. As an educator, Yoon has had diverse experiences with musicians and non-musicians alike. Her voice and musical theatre major students have been accepted to music schools in the U.S. and abroad as well as professional opera houses, theaters, and cruise lines. Non-musicians, too, have benefited from her expertise in vocal pedagogy and voice therapy, helping to place them in nationally-syndicated broadcasting companies.
Paulina Villareal, mezzo soprano
Mexican mezzo-soprano Paulina Villarreal is a prominent recitalist, cabaret, operatic, and musical theater singer around the United States and Mexico. A graduate of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Dr. Villarreal has been a soloist and resident artist in important companies and orchestras around the United States like Opera Saratoga, Cincinnati opera, Opera Fusion: New Works, the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Pops (Boston, MA), Opera Memphis, Opera Steamboat, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Appalachian Symphony Orchestra and the Decatur Millikin Symphony Orchestra. In the entrepreneurship and administrative world, Dr. Villarreal is the founder and artistic director of the annual concert series “Cantos para Hermanar al Mundo”, devoted to the promotion of classical vocal genres hosted in Northern Mexico. She is currently a professor of voice at the University of Memphis Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, and the Young Singer Program Director at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, a prestigious summer training program in the United States.
Trained as a classical vocalist, Villarreal is now in demand for her singing versatility in musical theater, and commercial music genres. An advocate of new music and crossover works, she has closely collaborated with contemporary American composers like William Bolcom, Laura Kaminsky, Ricky Ian Gordon and Derek Bremel, and recognized by important foundations like the Kurt Weill Foundation in New York, and the Comic Opera Guild in Michigan for performing a wide variety of vocal genres.
Recent performance credits and career highlights include the world premiere of Mango Suite with the Princeton Symphony, Simply Sondheim: Stephen Sondheim’s 85th Birthday Celebration with the Boston POPS, Sondheim vs Webber with the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Macy’s ArtWave Sampler with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Alma de España with Cincinnati Song Initiative, featured performances with the Wagner Society of Cincinnati, HPAF’s Hollywood Hits season opener at the Big Island of Hawaii, a tour of William Bolcom’s Complete Cabaret Songs (Die Neue Galerie, NYC; National Women Museum of Arts, Washington DC, Cohen Studio Theater, Cincinnati) and multiple recitals promoting her extensive research on Mexican composer Maria Grever.
Marcus King, tenor
Marcus King is a graduate of the University of Memphis with a bachelor’s degree in music education, cum laude, and a master’s in vocal performance. In the summer of 2009, he premiered the John Baur opera Magdala at the Chautauqua Institute in Chautauqua, NY, in the role of St. Peter. During the summer of 2008, he attended the International Institute of the Vocal Arts program in Chiari, Italy, studying with Mrs. Mignon Dunn. His home voice teacher is Pamela Gaston of the University of Memphis. He is the 2010 first-place winner of the Memphis Beethoven Club Competition, district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions (2008 and 2009) and first-place winner of the N.A.T.S competition district level in Memphis, TN. He also participated in the AIMS program in Graz Austria, where he made it to the finals of the annual Aims Meistersinger Competition. In 2013 he made his European debut in Norfolk, England, as Demetrius in the Yorke Trust Summer Opera production of Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and in 2014 rejoined the company as Ubalde in Gluck’s Armide. In December of 2014, he traveled to Japan as a soloist in the New York-based professional touring group, D&P Joubert LLC/ The Glory Gospel Singers. He has been a young artist for the Utah Festival Opera as well as The Charlottesville Opera, formerly known as Ash Lawn Opera. For Charlottesville Opera, he played the role of Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto. For Opera Memphis, he has had many solo roles, such as Mr. Gobineau in The Medium, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, Samuel in Pirates of Penzance, Joe Harland in Later the Same Evening, and the doctor in La Traviata. In the Spring of 2018, he played the role of Erminio in The Triumph of Honor for Opera Memphis’ Midtown Opera Festival. Soon after, he debuted at Opera on the Rock in Little Rock Arkansas, in a new work entitled Troubled Island
Jason Terry, piano
Praised for his “passion and commitment” at the keyboard, Jason Terry has given performances throughout North America, Asia, and Europe as both a soloist and collaborative pianist. His performances have been broadcast on NPR stations from border to border. During the 2022—23 season, he will appear throughout the U.S. including Carnegie Hall, the Peabody Institute, and the National World War I Museum. In addition to live performances, he was recently invited to serve as a recording artist for Steinway’s Spirio piano and is a recording artist for a forthcoming music theory textbook which promotes diverse examples of literature. An artist-teacher, he continues to serve as a piano faculty member for the world-renowned Interlochen Arts Camp and has been on faculty for the Beijing International Music Festival as a master teacher. He is an enthusiast of arts advocacy, especially in matters of social and cultural diplomacy. Since 2017, he has been affiliated with the NGO American Voices and has traveled to teach and perform throughout the Middle East. Moreover, recent grants have supported his work using art to fight against social injustices such as human trafficking.
Aside from teaching and performing, Terry is interdisciplinary in his research. Since 2020, he has worked with physical therapist Dana Daniel Blake (DPT) to create resources for pianists to better understand the musculoskeletal system and how it most efficiently operates while sitting at the piano. So unique is this research that it was selected for presentation at the 2021 national conference of the American Physical Therapy Association and the 2022 Performing Arts Medicine Association’s International Symposium. Moreover, this research earned him the 2022 Innovator of the Year national award from Physical Therapy Learning Institute. Alongside his interest in the physical requirements needed to play the piano is his work with the physical instrument itself. Since 2020, Terry has been an apprentice in the piano technology field and is currently working towards earning the Registered Piano Technician (RPT) credential. Merging physical performance techniques and a comprehension of the mechanics of the instrument is the basis for a graduate piano pedagogy course he has developed.
Jason remains active as a music researcher and writer and continues to present and publish throughout the world. During this past year, he has received invitations to present and perform on a range of diverse topics such as “Genderism & the Arts” (University of Gothenburg-Sweden), “Music & Cultural Diplomacy” (Tampa, FL), and “The Solo Piano Literature of Hazel Scott” (University of Arizona). Since 2018, Jason has authored and published biographies for Steinway & Sons’ Immortal Artists. His scholarship in the field of piano performance history is extensive, and portions were recently included in the Carnegie Hall archives. Furthermore, his investigation on the origin of the plagal-amen cadence has been accepted for presentation at several prestigious institutions around the world including Oxford University.
Dr. Jason Terry is currently Assistant Professor of Piano at Samford University where he serves as Director of Keyboard Studies.
Artina McCain, piano
Described as a pianist with “power and finesse”, “beautiful and fiery” (KMFA Austin) and having a “sense of color, balance and texture” (Austin Chamber Music Center) Artina McCain, has built a three-fold career as a performer, educator and speaker. As a recitalist, her credits include performances at Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre in London, Weill Hall at Carnegie and Merkin Hall in New York City and more. Other highlights include guest appearances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra and Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra.
Dedicated to promoting the works of Black and other underrepresented composers, McCain curates Underrepresented Composers Concerts for multiple arts organizations. She is an American Prize winner for her solo piano recordings of these works and won a Gold Global Music Award for her recent album project Heritage. In 2021, Hal Leonard published her transcriptions of Twenty-Four Traditional African American Folk Songs. In 2022, she was the mistress of ceremony for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
McCain was a featured inspirational leader in the award-winning PBS documentary series Roadtrip Nation: Degree of Impact in an episode exploring the real-world impact of professionals with doctoral degrees in and outside of academia.
McCain’s performances have been heard on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), Germany’s WDR and television appearances including features on CSPAN for the MLK 50 Commemoration. McCain is a three-time Global Music Awards winner including collaborative projects I, Too (Naxos), with soprano Icy Monroe, focused on African American Spirituals and Art Songs and Shades, a collaboration with her husband and duo partner Martin McCain.
After not performing for 6 years while battling a performance injury, she now enjoys a prolific concert career with more than 10 years of full injury recovery. She uses her recovery to serve as an advocate of musicians’ wellness–curating articles, lectures, and forums to educate teachers and students. Her article on performance injury and Muscle Activation Techniques was published in the Piano Magazine. McCain has presented on wellness and other topics at Universities and the Music Teachers National Association Conference and the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy.
McCain graduated cum laude from Southern Methodist University. She received her Master of Music from Cleveland Institute of Music and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Currently, she is Associate Professor of Piano and Coordinator of the Keyboard Area at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis and Co-Founder/Director of the Memphis International Piano Festival and Competition.
In her spare time, Artina enjoys boutique shopping, traveling internationally and is an avid tea aficionado.
Artina McCain is a Yamaha Artist.

Crosstown Arts Film Series presents WINGS OF DESIRE
2023-03-02 13:00 - 15:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents WINGS OF DESIRE at Crosstown Theater.
WIM WENDERS / 1987 / 128 minutes / PG-13
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Wings of Desire is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts — fears, hopes, dreams — of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality and come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Crosstown Arts Film Series presents THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE
2023-03-09 13:00 - 15:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE at Crosstown Theater.
Luis Buñuel / 1972 / 102 minutes / PG
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-middle-class sextet sits down to a dinner that is continually delayed, their attempts to eat thwarted by vaudevillian events both actual and imagined, including terrorist attacks, military maneuvers, and ghostly apparitions. Stringing together a discontinuous, digressive series of absurdist set pieces, Buñuel and his screenwriting partner Jean-Claude Carrière send a cast of European-film greats — including Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Bulle Ogier — through a maze of desire deferred, frustrated, and interrupted. The Oscar-winning pinnacle of Buñuel’s late-career ascent as a feted maestro of the international art house, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is also one of his most gleefully radical assaults on the values of the ruling class.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

MicroCinema: A String of Pearls - The Films of Camille Billops and James Hatch
2023-03-15 14:00 - 16:00
Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis present MicroCinema: A String of Pearls – The Films of Camille Billops and James Hatch.
Crosstown Theater
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Doors at 6:30 pm | Screenings begin at 7:00 pm
Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts are proud to present three films from A String of Pearls: The Films of Camille Billops and James Hatch. Newly restored, these three shorts, Take Your Bags, Older Women and Love, and Suzanne, Suzanne, highlight the longtime creative partnership of artists, writers, and filmmakers Camille Billops and James Hatch.
Many of the six films they made together pull from and explore Billops’ specific point of view, her life, and the lives of her family. These films are singular, deeply creative, and incisive in their examination of the stripping of culture and identity because of slavery (Take Your Bags), the experiences of love and dating later in life (Older Women and Love), and the deep ripple effects that abuse has on a relationship between mother and daughter (Suzanne, Suzanne).
We’re grateful to Malkah Manouel and Third World Newsreel for making this MicroCinema possible!

(SOLD OUT) Iron & Wine: Back to Basics – Part Three With Anna Mieke
2023-03-23 14:00 - 17:00
Crosstown Arts presents Iron & Wine: Back to Basics — Part Three at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Doors at 6 pm | Show at 7 pm
Ticketing: $40-70
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Iron & Wine is the musical project of singer-songwriter Sam Beam. Born and raised in South Carolina, Beam was teaching film when his home recorded debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle, was released on Sub Pop records in 2002. Garnering both critical and popular acclaim, Beam was vaulted into the spotlight of the burgeoning indie-folk and Americana scenes. Now entering its 20th year, Iron & Wine have released seven full length recordings, numerous EPs / singles, and collaborations with Calexico, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) and Jesca Hoop all on their way to becoming a four-time GRAMMY nominee. Iron & Wine’s music has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with their distinctly cinematic songs; in particular they’ve become synonymous with the movies Twilight and Garden State and continue to find a home in your favorite film, TV show or streaming playlist. As the world continues to spin — so do Iron & Wine continue on their path of releasing new music and touring.
Anna Mieke’s world radiates with an intense heat that lies closer to the desert or the jungle than her hometown of Wicklow, Ireland. On her second album Theatre, she invites listeners into this warmth, enveloping us in a vivid dreamscape that mirrors her lush and adventurous upbringing. Her music is the⁠ surreal soundtrack of a vast personal plain steeped in nostalgia, family, memory, death and dreaming—where gritty reality and romanticism meet. This duality is the thematic core of Theatre, which focuses on the conflict between permanence and temporality, the immaterial and material, and how memories of places and people fade, warp, and reinvent themselves over time.

Memphis Symphony Orchestra: MOZART AND ELECTRIC GUITAR CONCERTO
2023-03-24 13:30 - 15:00
Paul and Linnea Bert Classic Accents Series · 3
MOZART AND ELECTRIC GUITAR CONCERTO
Friday, March 24, 2023 · 6:30pm
Crosstown Theater
Purchase tickets here
Friday, March 24, 2023 | 6:30pm | Crosstown Theater
Kalena Bovell, conductor
D.J. Sparr, composer and electric guitar
HAHN Overture to Mozart
SPARR Violet Bond: Electric Guitar Concerto
VILLA-LOBOS Sinfonietta No. 1
MOZART Symphony No. 31 “Paris”
A concert of musical dedications: Mozart’s “Paris” Symphony headlines this concert, paired with works dedicated to him by two South American composers, Reynaldo Hahn and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Young composer and performer, D.J. Sparr brings his breathtaking electric guitar concerto, also dedicated to his musical inspiration: his grandmother, Violet Bond.

Makaya McCraven
2023-03-28 14:30 - 16:30
Crosstown Arts presents Makaya McCraven at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $25 advance | $30 day of the show
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Makaya McCraven is a prolific drummer, compuser, and producer.
His newest album, In These Times, is the triumphant finale of a project seven-plus years in the making. It’s a preeminent addition to his already-acclaimed and extensive discography, and it’s the album he’s been trying to make since he started making records.
McCraven believes that the word “jazz” is “insufficient, at best, to describe the phenomenon we’re dealing with.” The artist, who has been aptly called a “cultural synthesizer”, has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st century folk music. Profiled in Vice, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among other publications, he and the music he makes today are at the very vanguard of that phenomenon. According to the New York Times, “McCraven has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.” The artist explained to NPR in 2019, “I don’t think what I’m doing is necessarily that far off of the legacy of jazz that I grew up in … I think one of the things that gives it strength is that people want to argue over it. That’s a good sign. That means there’s life here.”
Born in Paris in the Autumn of 1983 to Hungarian singer and flutist Ágnes Zsigmondi and African-American expat jazz drummer Stephen McCraven, Makaya was raised in a vibrant, creative community in the Northampton, Massachusetts area, where his father often played with artists like saxophonist and ethnomusicologist Marion Brown, multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, and saxophonist Archie Shepp, as well as a cadre of African Gnawa musicians. That scene, with its enticing blend of cultures, helped establish his philosophy around jazz as folk music. Meanwhile, his mother’s music blended Eastern European folk traditions, concurrently shaping his conceptions about the role of music in building and reflecting communities.
“I’m really drawn to folk music. Music of aural tradition, music that is of the people where it’s more of a collective experience of music and dance and culture that we all participate in and know as part of our being or as part of who we are.” He sees his work as a continuation of those traditions, noting, “I like to teach the music to musicians by ear, and hope even when I bring in more challenging rhythms, or difficult time signatures, I am able to do it in a way that is of the body and of the people of the earth in a way that’s not necessarily some intellectual experiment, but more something that’s dealing with people.”
While immersed as a youth in global folk traditions, he was also a child of the nineties, deeply influenced by sample-based hip-hop. He observed that jazz was sometimes perceived by his peers as “something that was old, corny, white… going to get you beat up.” This directly countered his own experience with the music: “That was such a strange idea to me, because the guys I grew up around were cool, and [weren’t] buttoned up like that.”
Eventually he discovered bridges between jazz and hip-hop, including classic jazz records being sampled by hip-hop producers such as Pete Rock, and began to devote energy to “reappropriate this music to be what it is, what it means to me, and what it means for my people.”
After cutting his teeth in the Western Massachusetts music scene, co-founding a jazz-hip hop band called Cold Duck Complex that ultimately opened for The Pharcyde, Digable Planets, and the Wu-Tang Clan, he and his partner (now wife, comparative race studies scholar Nitasha Tamar Sharma) moved to Chicago in 2006. McCraven soon found himself immersed in both the creative and straight-ahead jazz scenes, proving his versatility, and along the way finding a community that mirrored the pulsating scene that birthed him artistically. Within five years’ time, he’d established a name for himself, gigging alongside scene stalwarts like Willie Pickens, Marquis Hill and Jeff Parker.
He first connected with the founders of Chicago’s International Anthem label in late 2011, and across 2012-2013 they hosted and recorded a series of improvised jazz nights featuring his combo at The Bedford, a club situated in what was once an old basement bank vault. McCraven took 48 hours of recordings and sculpted beguiling hip-hop beats, not unlike how Teo Macero looped and assembled Miles Davis’ On the Corner from improvised magic. At the time, McCraven thought of the project, which became the 2015 double LP release In The Moment, as an opportunity to connect and to “find a young audience in this music. It just felt like the right time and a place where I could really connect with people.” That notion proved prophetic: JazzTimes called the album “one of the year’s most mesmerizing releases,” the record was an “Album of the Week” pick by taste-making DJ Gilles Peterson on BBC 6 Music, and it was chosen for “Best of 2015” lists by PopMatters, NPR, and the Los Angeles Times.
McCraven continued to hone his process of live improvisation and sampling with Highly Rare in 2017 (crafted from a live set recorded at Danny’s Tavern in Chicago), 2018’s Where We Come From(CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape), which was built from recordings of a showcase at London’s Total Refreshment Centre, and Universal Beings (also released in 2018). Universal Beings, consisting of augmented live sessions in Chicago and New York, in addition to pop-up studio sessions in London and Los Angeles, concretely reflects his borderless multi-national ethos. The work featured varying configurations of international players, including Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings from London, Junius Paul and Tomeka Reid of Chicago, Anna Butterss and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson from Los Angeles, and Brandee Younger and Dezron Douglas from New York.
The title of the album was culled from a sampled passage on the track “Brighter Days Beginning,” in which percussionist Carlos Niño offers, “We’re universal beings,” a theme of borderlessness that resonated deeply with McCraven, who grew up in a multicultural household and community. “I’m not beholden to this border or this city,” McCraven told Vice in 2018, “What is a place? Other than the people. It’s just dirt, you know?” The resulting album was called “radiant” and “hypnotic” by Pitchfork.
In 2019, McCraven both delivered a triumphant Jazz Night in America performance at South Shore Cultural Center in Chicago, and mounted a multimedia performance of an early iteration of what became his new album In These Times, at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis.
In the meantime, he remixed Gil Scott-Heron’s final album (2010’s I’m New Here) for 2020’s We’re New Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven, issued Universal Beings E+F Sides(also in 2020), and delved into the venerable Blue Note Records catalog in 2021 for Deciphering the Message, each project also employing new improvisations and sampling, helping to further cement his “beat scientist” moniker. Concurrently, the seeds for 2022’sIn These Times were budding, and their nurseries were stages around the globe. McCraven explains, “As I’ve been touring, I’ve been performing music off of the record In These Times… When In the Moment took off and I started touring a lot, we would go on the road and 50% of the music was just my concept and my compositions.”
In These Times, a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven’s personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community, is the recording that McCraven has been trying to create for 7+ years, as it’s been slowly cooking in the background while his other works were released. He began recording In These Times seven years ago, but “for whatever reason, Universal Beings just came to fruition much quicker. It just took more time for this to mature into everything it’s become. With the success of Universal Beings and the Universal Beings concerts that we did (with Red Bull) in Chicago at South Shore Cultural Center and le poisson rouge in New York, I had an opportunity to realize the record not as a collection of four sides of trios and quartets, but I turned that record as a performance into a 10 to 12-person concert, and that experience ended up evolving my approach to In These Times.”
In These Times encompasses all he’s lived through, as well as his lineage, while also pushing the music forward. Music critic Passion of the Weiss suggested that “McCraven’s work, both with younger players and the sounds of older recordings, is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as ‘jazz.’ He’s found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he’s plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument.” McCraven concurs: “To me, that is the tradition that I want to try to take part in. Being well-rooted, but walking into the future, is really what all of the leaders in this music have done that I admire. And I think that resonates with people. Something that’s like how we know it, but is evolving… It’s just where I am at, where we’re at, and the evolution of that, and that’s what I’m trying to be.”

The Bad Plus & Marc Ribot and the Jazz Bins
2023-03-30 14:30 - 17:00
Crosstown Arts presents The Bad Plus & Marc Ribot and the Jazz Bins at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $35-45
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
The Bad Plus
Reid Anderson (bass), Dave King (drums), Ben Monder (guitar), Chris Speed (saxophone)
The Bad Plus are the ultimate originals. A democratic unit with a clear vision and a refusal to conform to convention. For the past two decades they have played with spirit and adventure, made their own rules and done so with a bold sense of creativity and intent. Avoiding easy categorization, The Bad Plus has won critical acclaim and a legion of fans worldwide with their unique sound and flair for live performance.
Now in their 21st year, The Bad Plus continues to push boundaries as founding members Reid Anderson (bass) and Dave King (drums) embark on a new piano-less incarnation of the band with Ben Monder (guitar) and Chris Speed (tenor saxophone) – instigating a new wave of excitement and anticipation within the band that is re-energizing their sound and inspiration. The Bad Plus have constantly searched to bridge genres and techniques while exploring the infinite possibilities of exceptional musicians working in perfect sync.
The Bad Plus is set to release their 15th studio recording and debut self-titled album as a dynamic new quartet via Edition Records on Friday, September 30th. “Evolution is necessary for life and creativity,” say Dave King and Reid Anderson. “We’ve evolved, but we’re still The Bad Plus.”
Marc Ribot & The Jazz Bins
Marc Ribot (guitar), Greg Lewis (organ), Joe Dyson (drums)
Marc Ribot’s four months with jazz organ legend Brother Jack McDuff were his first ever with an internationally touring artist. Their 1979 itinerary included Ribot’s first concerts in Europe, and his only to date in Gary, Indiana and Rochester, NY. Although the two never recorded together (due to artistic differences that became apparent in Ribot’s later work…Brother Jack reportedly spent much of their stage time fixing Ribot with what side musicians referred to as his “death ray”), Ribot never lost his affection for McDuff’s music and the Hammond organ dominated Soul Jazz scene from which it emerged. Says Ribot: “McDuff’s US audiences—the so-called ‘Chitlin Circuit— were just the hippest in the world: sophisticated about the music, definitely…but also demanding the deepest soul while rewarding restraint in its expression. What this brought out in the musicians was every bit as intense as the music taking shape at CBGBs at the time. In fact, I always felt the two scenes had something in common, and I’ve been trying to express exactly what ever since.”
Fellow Jazz-Bin, Greg Lewis, is not only one of the greatest virtuosos of the Hammond b3 organ alive, but perhaps the only one willing and able to haul a real Hammond b3 and Leslie speaker cabinet to live gigs in NYC! Says Ribot: “Greg is NYC’s best kept secret. He can tell a story on the Hammond like nobody else.” Rounded out with a TBA guest drummer, The Jazz-Bins use deep grooves and over the top improvisation to channel the spirits of Newark’s Key Club Sparky J’s Lounge, and NYC’s CBGB’s c/a 1977 into a quest for punk/soul salvation. The Jazz-Bins go— not exactly ‘ancient’, but ‘back’— to the future, to tap into a scene that never really existed (but should have, will, and does whenever people drop their preconceptions about ‘genre’ long enough to feel the groove), and a vibe that never really stopped. Dig it!
New Orleans native Joe Dyson has certainly been one to watch. He started playing music in his family’s church at just two years old. After being noticed for his peculiar talent, Joe was placed in the Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp where he was shadowed by the late, great clarinetist Alvin Batiste, and his longtime band leader and mentor, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. He went on to graduate from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), and earned a Presidential Scholarship to his alma mater Berklee College of Music.
Joe has shared the stage with Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ellis Marsalis, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Jon Batiste, Leo Nocentelli, Sullivan Fortner, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Pedrito Martinez, Grammy Award winners Nicholas Payton and Pat Metheny among others.

Shoot & Splice: Intimacy on Set
2023-04-11 14:00 - 16:00
Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis present Shoot & Splice: Intimacy On Set at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Tickets: Free
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Event begins at 7:00 p.m.
Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts are excited to present a panel and conversation on Intimacy Coordinating. While not a new position, intimacy coordination has recently become an on-set film industry expectation whenever actors are needed to perform vulnerable scenes that require high levels of trust and communication.
Our panel of local coordinators have worked closely with many directors, actors, and crew, while also furthering their knowledge through organizations such as Intimacy Choreographers of Color (ICOC) and the Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE).
Intimacy Coordination covers a much broader range of cinematic scenes than one might realize – including stunt choreography – while assisting to create a safe, trusting, and creative set experience for all. To learn more about our panelists, see their bios below.
Shoot & Splice is a FREE filmmaker forum presented by Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis, featuring a wide variety of technical, educational, and unique topics of interest to the Memphis filmmaking community.

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
2023-04-13 14:00 - 16:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV at Crosstown Theater.
Amanda Kim / 2023 / 109 minutes / Not Rated
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
The father of video art and coiner of the term “electronic superhighway,” Nam June Paik was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Director Amanda Kim tells the remarkable story of Paik as a citizen of the world and trailblazing artist, who both saw the present and predicted the future with astonishing clairvoyance. With Steven Yeun reading Paik’s own written words — showcasing the artist’s strategic playfulness and immense creativity — Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV is a celebration of perhaps the most modern artist of all time.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

MicroCinema: IF/Then Southern Shorts
2023-04-19 14:00 - 16:00
Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis present MicroCinema: IF/Then Southern Shorts.
Crosstown Theater
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Doors at 6:30 pm | Screenings begin at 7:00 pm
Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
For this month’s MicroCinema, Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts are ecstatic to have partnered with IF/Then Shorts to present an array of incredible, often touching documentary shorts from filmmakers throughout the South. We’re glad to be able to include in this program a preview screening of Zaire Love’s SLICE, which was a part of the 2021 IF/Then + Hulu Short Documentary Lab and the recipient of the 2020 Black Creators Forum Short Film Grant!
These IF/Then-supported films cover a vast swath of the region, from Memphis to western rural Texas, to New Orleans and Central Florida. They intimately and thoughtfully foreground workers who are reeling from the effects of the oil industry (WHEN IT’S GOOD, IT’S GOOD), the deep impact the work of Haitian immigrants in the U.S. have on their families back home (MADAME PIPI), and those who’ve beautifully mastered the art of slicing right here in Memphis (SLICE).
Thank you to IF/Then Shorts for their work and support in making this program possible!

Little Richard: I Am Everything
2023-04-20 14:00 - 16:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents Little Richard: I Am Everything at Crosstown Theater.
Lisa Cortés / 2023 / 98 minutes / Not Rated
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Like a quasar burning past the gaslight, director Lisa Cortés’ eye-opening documentary explodes the whitewashed canon of American pop music. Little Richard: I Am Everything shines a clarifying light on the Black, queer origins of rock ’n’ roll, and establishes the genre’s big bang: Richard Wayne Penniman. Testimonials from legendary musicians and cultural figures, Black and queer scholars, and interviews with the artist himself all exuberantly reclaim a history that was willfully appropriated by white artists and institutions. Cortés updates the canon with a treasure trove of rarely seen archival footage of Penniman. Among the gems are scenes with his Black and queer predecessors and contemporaries, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the mother of rock ’n’ roll who gave 14-year-old Penniman his first break. Cortés depicts Penniman’s complex journey as a conflicted revolutionary who careened between religion, sex, and rock ’n’ roll, navigating the extreme tensions of race and sexuality of his time.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Kafé Kirk with Kirk Whalum & Jazzmeia Horn (SOLD OUT)
2023-04-23 13:00 - 15:00
Crosstown Arts presents Kafé Kirk with Kirk Whalum and special guest Jazzmeia Horn in Crosstown Theater.
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Crosstown Theater
Box office opens at 5PM | Doors open at 5:30PM
Show begins at 6PM
Tickets: General Admission $45 (plus fees)
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Join Grammy-winning saxophonist Kirk Whalum for Kafé Kirk, an ongoing jazz series in Crosstown Theater featuring musical and spiritual collaborations with special guest artists. This iteration’s performance will feature jazz singer Jazzmeia Horn.
JAZZMEIA HORN
Jazzmeia Horn is an American jazz singer and songwriter. She won the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition in 2015. Horn’s repertoire includes jazz standards and covers of songs from other genres, including by artists such as Stevie Wonder. She has been compared to jazz vocalists such as Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, and Nancy Wilson.
“Horn is among the most exciting young vocalists in jazz, with a proud traditionalism that keeps her tightly linked to the sound of classic figures like Nancy Wilson and Betty Carter, but a vivacity of spirit and conviction that places her firmly in the present.” — The New York Times
KIRK WHALUM
Soulful, passionate, stirring…these are the words most often used to describe Kirk’s music. Forged from his Memphis, Tennessee, gospel roots and his 1980s initiation into the thriving Houston, TX nightclub scene, Kirk’s big, rich tenor sound is unmistakably his. The ’80s were highlighted by Kirk’s stepping out of his blossoming sideman role and forming his own band. It was there that Kirk ultimately developed both his “voice” and songwriting in the crucible of the local club scene—especially at a rooftop club called Cody’s. It was also in Houston where jazz pianist Bob James “discovered” him and brought him on tour, which led to five successful albums with Columbia Records, including Cache, Kirk’s first #1 album. As well, Kirk and Bob received a Grammy nomination for their collaboration album, Joined at the Hip. After moving to Los Angeles, Kirk became an in demand session player for top artists like, Barbara Streisand, Al Jarreau, Luther Vandross, Larry Carlton, Quincy Jones and most notably, Whitney Houston, amongst many others. It’s his sax heard on the mega-hit, “I Will Always Love You.” Kirk soon followed that career high point with his phenomenal hit album released on Warner Bros. Records, For You, perhaps the most successful of over 25 solo recordings to date; others include his eclectic, and much lauded, Gospel According to Jazz series, (Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4). In addition to his many solo projects, Kirk was also a member of the popular soul/jazz group, BWB, which features Kirk as the “W” of the group with Rick Braun (trumpet) and Norman Brown (guitar).
Kirk is the recipient of numerous awards and acknowledgements for his musical excellence including three Dove Award nominations, an NAACP Image Award nomination and has won two Stellar Awards- Gospel music’s highest honor. A twelve time Grammy nominee, Kirk won his first Grammy award (2011)for Best Gospel Song (“It’s What I Do”—featuring Lalah Hathaway) alongside life-long friend and gifted songwriter, Jerry Peters.

Opening Night
2023-04-27 14:00 - 16:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents Opening Night at Crosstown Theater.
John Cassavetes / 1977 / 144 minutes / Rated PG-13
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
In a role equally as fragile and mercurial as A Woman Under the Influence’s “Mabel”, Gena Rowlands is Opening Night’s “Myrtle”: a successful actress going kind of crazy in a play about aging crazily. John Cassavetes’ hymn to that berserk business of performing, Opening Night is enhanced by its intense “old Hollywood” pedigree as Ben Gazzara, John Blondell, Paul Stewart and Cassavetes himself are the backing band for Rowlands’ knife-edged soloing. From the first scene, the narrative is peppered with turn-on-a-dime ambiguity. Whole swathes of action take place “onstage” in front of a real-life audience watching the in-character cast — with a permeable membrane between stage and “reality” so tangible it hurts.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Mahogany Chamber Music Series: “Mahogany Magic”
2023-04-30 13:00 - 14:30
Crosstown Arts presents the Mahogany Chamber Music Series: “Mahogany Magic” at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Doors at 5:30 pm | Concert at 6 pm
Tickets: $20 | $5 students
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
The Mahogany Chamber Music Series is a series of three chamber music concerts curated by Dr. Artina McCain, spotlighting Black and other underrepresented composers and performers.
Featuring:
Titus Underwood, oboe
Cremaine Booker, cello
Caitlin Edwards, violin
Artina McCain, piano
Titus Underwood, oboe
Titus Underwood is Principal Oboe of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music associate professor, Emmy Award winner, and 2021 recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence award. He received his Master of Music from The Juilliard School and bachelors from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Also, he has played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Miami Symphony Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony, and San Diego Symphony. Mr. Underwood has also played principal in Chineke!, Gateways Music Festival, and Bellingham Festival of Music. Underwood serves as teaching artist for Aspen Music Festival and the National Youth Orchestras program at Carnegie Hall. He also teaches and mentors for the National Alliance for Audition Support program maintained by the League of American Orchestras, The Sphinx Organization, and New World Symphony. His latest project was a short film he directed entitled “A Tale of Two Tails”.
Caitlin Edwards, violin
Violinist Caitlin Edwards began her musical journey at the age of eight within a non-profit organization in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. She later attended the University of Louisville (BM) and DePaul University (MM). Caitlin is a 2022 Esteemed Artist Award recipient from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, a 2021 3Arts/Walder Foundation awardee, 2018 Gateways Music Festival Rising Star, a co-curator with the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and a former fellow with the Chicago Sinfonietta. In addition, she has received Grammy certificates for recordings on Disney’s “The Lion King” and for albums by John Legend and PJ Morton. She released her debut album, “Exhale,” in 2021. Caitlin is a classically trained violinist, but she’s inspired by gospel, jazz, hip-hop, and neo-soul. She composes original music and intentionally performs the works of Black composers to help ensure that these composers and their compositions are remembered and spotlighted for aspiring young BIPOC musicians and the world as a whole. Caitlin is a proud member of D-Composed and Ensemble Dal Niente.
Cremaine Booker, cello
Nashville based cellist, Cremaine Booker (also known as ThatCelloGuy), has performed extensively in the United States in addition to being a highly accomplished studio cellist. He currently serves as a cellist in the Iris Orchestra and is former principal cellist for the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra and The Jackson Symphony. He has also made appearances with the Trevecca Symphony, the Sewanee Symphony, Roy “Futureman” Wooten’s Black Mozart Ensemble, and the Nashville Concerto Orchestra. He has performed with the likes of Hans Zimmer, Carrie Underwood, India.Arie, Mickey Guyton, Martina McBride, Jewel, Lindsey Stirling, Michael W. Smith, LeAnn Rhimes, Mike Hicks, and many others. In addition to his live performances he has recorded cello on projects such as Geostorm (2017), The Lion King (2019), and The Ruined King (2021).
Cremaine has performed masterclasses with teachers such as Natalia Koma, YeonJin Kim, Julia Tanner, Eric Kutz, Peter Sheppard, and Yo-Yo Ma. Cremaine holds degrees from Middle Tennessee State University.
Cremaine plays on a modern cello gifted to him by William H. and Judith Scheide.
Artina McCain, piano
Hailed by the New York Times as a “virtuoso pianist” Artina McCain, has built a formidable career as a performer, educator and speaker. As a recitalist, her credits include performances at Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre in London, Weill Hall at Carnegie and Merkin Hall in New York City and more. Other highlights include guest appearances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra and Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, she was the mistress of ceremony for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Dedicated to promoting the works of Black and other underrepresented composers, McCain curates Underrepresented Composers Concerts for multiple arts organizations. She is an American Prize winner for her solo piano recordings of these works and won a Gold Global Music Award for her recent album project Heritage. In 2021, Hal Leonard published her transcriptions of Twenty-Four Traditional African American Folk Songs.
McCain was a featured inspirational leader in the award-winning PBS documentary series Roadtrip Nation: Degree of Impact in an episode exploring the real-world impact of professionals with doctoral degrees in and outside of academia.
McCain’s performances have been heard on the Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), Germany’s WDR and television appearances including features on CSPAN for the MLK 50 Commemoration. McCain is a three-time Global Music Awards winner including collaborative projects I, Too (Naxos), with soprano Icy Monroe, focused on African American Spirituals and Art Songs and Shades, a collaboration with her husband and duo partner Martin McCain.
After not performing for 6 years while battling a performance injury, she now enjoys a prolific concert career with more than 10 years of full injury recovery. She uses her recovery to serve as an advocate of musicians’ wellness–curating articles, lectures, and forums to educate teachers and students. Most recently the BBC featured her on the podcast Sideways telling her miraculous story of injury to recovery. McCain has written and presented on wellness and other topics in the Piano Magazine and at multiple universities, Music Teachers National Association Conference and the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy.
McCain graduated cum laude from Southern Methodist University. She received her Master of Music from Cleveland Institute of Music and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Currently, she is Associate Professor of Piano and Coordinator of the Keyboard Area at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis and Co-Founder/Director of the Memphis International Piano Festival and Competition.
In her spare time, Artina enjoys boutique shopping, traveling internationally and is an avid tea aficionado.
Artina McCain is a Yamaha Artist.

Shoot & Splice: Filmmaker Speed Meetings
2023-05-02 14:00 - 16:00
Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis present the fourth annual Filmmaker Speed Meetings at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater at Crosstown Arts
Tuesday, May 2, 2023
7 pm
EVENT UPDATE: All spots for the Speed Meetings have been filled and the wait list is at capacity. However, Indie Memphis staff will be in attendance and happy to speak with you about our artist development opportunities and offer advice on other ways to get involved in the film community. Thank you!
Think of it like Speed Dating, but for filmmaking guidance and mentorship. This is a great opportunity for new/rising/new-to-Memphis filmmakers to connect with other Memphis-based industry professionals.
HOW IT WORKS
For one hour every 15 minutes, filmmakers will rotate to different tables to meet and talk shop with other Memphis film professionals. These professionals will be writers, directors, actors, editors, technicians, producers, etc. Everyone is matched up — as best as possible — with people that share common interests or goals.
This is intended for filmmakers with either little experience and/or are new to Memphis and have not had many networking opportunities.

Not all that apply may be selected to participate. Selection will depend on volume and how best the applicants can be matched with the attending professionals.
If you are not selected and just want to attend Shoot & Splice as usual, fear not! Indie Memphis staff members will be on hand in the “lobby” to chat with you and answer any questions you may have about our filmmaker development opportunities.

Valerie And Her Week of Wonders
2023-05-04 14:00 - 16:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents Valerie And Her Week of Wonders at Crosstown Theater.
Jaromil Jireš / 1970 / 76 minutes / Not Rated
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders serves up an endlessly looping, nonlinear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape. Ravishingly shot, enchantingly scored, and spilling over with surreal fancies, this enticing phantasmagoria from director Jaromil Jireš is among the most beautiful oddities of the Czechoslovak New Wave.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

MicroCinema: Shifting Lines - New Queer Animation
2023-05-10 14:00 - 16:00
Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis present MicroCinema: Shifting Lines: New Queer Animation in Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Doors at 6:30 pm | Screenings begin at 7:00 pm
Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts are honored to present Shifting Lines: New Queer Animation from Frameline Distribution. These six shorts traverse various styles of distinctive animation and live-action to explore relationships, family, and the development of identity in ways that are as thoughtful as they are stunning to watch.
From the tenderness and awkwardness of first crushes in high school, the warmth of chosen family, to the honor and power in intergenerational Indigenous knowledge, these expansive films remind us how much of our lives are formed by the intimate bonds we form with each other, how they bend and fray, and most importantly, how we maintain them.
Many thanks to Frameline Distribution for this program!
Content Advisory: While these films are animated, some films contain references and depictions of drugs and alcohol that make this program best suitable for those who are 16 and up.

Serial Mom
2023-05-18 14:00 - 16:00
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents Serial Mom at Crosstown Theater.
John Waters / 1994 / 95 minutes / Rated R
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Serial Mom is a 1994 American black comedy written and directed by John Waters. Happy housewife Beverly Sutphin has a charmed life — a beautiful suburban home, a successful dentist husband, and two normal teenagers. However, when one of her son’s teachers speaks disparagingly of the boy at a parent-teacher conference, Bev runs the instructor over in the school parking lot. Suddenly she has an insatiable taste for murder. Six homicides later, the cops get wise to her crimes.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.
