Tag: The Green Room

Spotlight Concert Series ft. Andrew Crust and Members of the MSO

Join Andrew Crust, Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and a chamber orchestra comprised of members of the MSO for a special evening of music at the Green Room at Crosstown Arts. The program was selected by Andrew Crust and features works by Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler, and Richard Wagner. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Doche will perform as soloist for the Mahler selections. Also a talented visual artist, Andrew Crust will be displaying some of his artwork available for purchase at the concert.

Doors open at 7 pm | performance starts at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $10 | $5 at the door with Student ID

Program:
Gustav Mahler, arr. Riehn – Kindertotenlieder
Alma Mahler, arr. Crust – Die Stille Stadt
Richard Wagner – Siegfried Idyll

Stephanie Doche, soloist

The Spotlight Concert Series showcases members of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in the intimate Green Room at Crosstown Arts. The series provides the Memphis community the opportunity to get to know and learn more about the talented musicians that make up the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Each month will feature a different musician or small chamber group as soloist or featured ensemble.

Artist Bios:
ANDREW CRUST is the newly-appointed Assistant Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (beginning in 19/20) where he will conduct a large number of subscription concerts, Kids concerts, Pops, as well as the innovative Annex Series and Tea and Trumpets Series each season. He is a versatile conductor with broad experience conducting orchestras, ballet and opera across North and South America and Europe.

Crust was Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2019 where he conducted over thirty-five concerts each season. He also served as Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program. As the Assistant Conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine from 2016-2018, he conducted a variety of concert series, helped coordinate the orchestra’s extensive educational programs, and helped lead a program for concertgoers under 40 called “Symphony and Spirits”.

Crust was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in the summers of 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour, as well as Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also served as Cover Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony and Nashville Symphony, Assistant/Cover Conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of Opera McGill. As a winner of the 2018 Ansbacher Fellowship, selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic, Crust was invited to the Salzburger Festspiele throughout August 2018 with full access to all Festival performances and rehearsals. Furthermore, Crust was the only American invited as a semi-finalist for the 2018 Nestlé and Salzburg Festival‘s Young Conductors Award, and worked with the Austrian Ensemble for New Music in May of 2018.

Praised for her “fervent, commanding vocal prowess,” French-American mezzo-soprano STEPHANIE DOCHE (rhymes with posh) was a Handorf Company Artist with Opera Memphis for the 2018-2019 season. While in Memphis she sang the roles of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore, and Toledo in the professional premiere of new American opera, The Falling & the Rising. Stephanie is also an Encouragement Award recipient for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, West Tennessee district.

In 2018, Stephanie garnered recognition for her “boldly convincing” performance as Idamante in Idomeneo with Opera NEO in San Diego. Other operatic highlights include Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Mére Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, and La Suora Zelatrice in Suor Angelica. Stephanie performed as Meg March in Little Women with UT Austin Butler Opera Center under the guidance and praise of the opera’s composer, Mark Adamo.

Impassioned with a desire to connect through creativity, Stephanie loves introducing opera to new audiences. As a Handorf Company Artist, Stephanie was a core member of 30 Days of Opera, an annual event that presents free opera in Memphis and its surrounding areas every day in September. Also in 2018, Stephanie performed in the premiere of the new children’s opera, Jack and Jill and the Happening Hill, with Salt Marsh Opera. During this community outreach, Stephanie and company presented the opera to over 5,000 students in Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Stephanie has been a featured soloist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, University of Texas Wind Symphony, Rocky Ridge Music Center, and the Austin based chamber ensemble, prismatx, with whom she performed Schoenberg’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire.’

Stephanie was born in France to an American mother and Canadian father. When she was four years old, Stephanie and her family moved to Rochester, New York, where she was raised.

Black Cream with Abe Partridge

Join us for a performance by Memphis-based soul group Black Cream with opening act Abe Partridge (a singer/songwriter from Alabama).

Tickets: $5
Doors open at 7:30 pm | Performance at 8 pm

About Black Cream:
Black Cream is a newly formed conglomerate of some of Memphis’ musical prodigies. Lead guitarist and good soul TO Crivens flies high with his attention to feel and detail during his solos that make the room stand still.

The Band is anchored by bassist, Dr. Derek Brassel, the coolest cat in every room, is unofficially certified as the groove doctor and his bass lines are spell binding. On drums and vocals, Courtney Barnes displays jaw-dropping skill and vocal finesse, oftime harmonizing with his brother, Chris Barnes, who rounds out the Black Cream team on vocals and percussion with the charismatic presence of a baptist preacher and the vocal abilities of your favorite soul crooner.

About Abe Partidge:
Abe Partridge is a singer/songwriter and visual folk artist from Mobile, AL. People have said that Abe Partridge sounds older than his chronological age, and there’s a very good reason for that – he’s packed a lot of living into his 37 years.

Those experiences, ranging from the earthy to the surreal, the spiritual light to the depths of depression, come together with gripping intensity on Partridge’s second full-length album, Cotton Fields and Blood for Days. Over the course of ten songs, this troubadour draws listeners in with a combination of southern gothic storytelling and a dark humor reminiscent of the late Townes Van Zandt – delivered in a gravelly tone that conjures up images of Tom Waits in his barstool warming days.

Memphis Concrete

Experimental electronic music festival in The Green Room at Crosstown Arts.

Tickets: $25 per day

Line-up for Saturday 6/29:
Matmos
Rapoon
Mykel Boyd
Optic Sink
Max Eilbacher
MPX

Line-up for Sunday 6/30:
Moor Mother
Pas Musique
Tavishi
Outside Source
Artificer
Paul Vinsonhaler
Jack Alberson

TN Screamers at The Green Room

Join for in The Green Room for “real-deal country music” by the TN Screamers. Featuring Jesse Davis (aka Yesse Yavis), Keith Cooper, Frank McLallen, and Graham Winchester. Also featuring DJ Andrew McCalla.

Tickets: Pay what you can
Doors open at 7 pm | Performance starts at 8 pm

Michael Shults Quartet at The Green Room

Join us for a very special evening with award-winning improv saxophonist Michael Shults with Carl Maguire, Alan Maguire, and Alvie Givhan.

Tickets: $10
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Performance at 7 pm

About Michael Shults:
Saxophonist Michael Shults has been praised for his “strong, imaginative” improvisations (Downbeat Magazine) and “fresh and intelligent musical ideas” (The Pitch). A first-call musician on the Kansas City jazz scene for nearly a decade, Shults remains an active performer in the Fountain City and beyond, and has twice appeared as a sideman on the Jazzweek National Radio Airplay Charts. In 2018, Dr. Shults was selected to perform at the North American Saxophone Alliance Conference Friday night headline concert as a featured soloist along with Branford Marsalis. As a graduate student at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Michael was a finalist in the 2012 North American Saxophone Alliance Jazz Artist Competition, and was the winner of the Graduate College Soloist category in the 2012 Downbeat Magazine Student Music Awards Issue.

As a concert saxophonist Michael Shults has been praised for his “jaw-dropping” and “authoritative” technique (Bill Brownlee of theKansas City Star) and has recently performed by invitation at the College Band Director’s National Association conference, the North American Saxophone Alliance biennial conference, the Minnesota Music Educator’s Association Conference, and the University of Iowa Festival for New Music. Dr. Shults is a founding faculty member of the Kansas City Saxophone Workshop along with Zach Shemon, alto saxophonist of the PRISM Quartet. He has also served on the faculty of the Eugene Rousseau Saxophone Workshop at Shell Lake Arts Center and the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. He is currently the alto saxophone chair in the Coalescent Quartet. Michael is Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of Memphis and previously held the same position at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

He is a Yamaha and D’Addario performing artist and performs on their instruments and reeds exclusively.

Ted Ludwig Trio at The Green Room

Enjoy an evening with New Orleans-based seven-string jazz guitarist Ted Ludwig with drummer Brian Brown and bassist Joe Vick at the Green Room at Crosstown Arts.

Tickets: $10

Doors open at 7 pm | Performance at 7:30 pm

Acclaimed seven-string jazz guitarist Ted Ludwig (b. 1974, New Orleans, LA) has been a part of the jazz scene in New Orleans since 1997. Throughout that time period, he has performed for numerous club performances, festivals, and recordings. He has released 4 albums as a leader and many more as a versatile sideman and co leader.

Ted earned his Bachelor and Masters Degrees from the University of New Orleans Jazz Studies Program, under the direction of the legendary pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. He received an ASCAP award, the Louis Armstrong award, and the Overture to the Cultural Season award for his outstanding musicianship and creativity. Inspired by the recordings of Joe Pass, Pat Martino, and Wes Montgomery, Ludwig soon became one of the most sought after guitarists in the New Orleans jazz scene, working professionally as a soloist, and accompanist.

He has performed with notable contemporaries such as; Ellis Marsalis, Peter Bernstein, Bob Dorough, Larry Coryell, Nathan East, Nicholas Payton, Howard Alden, Mundell Lowe, Rick Margitza, Julian Labro, Steve Masakowski, John Ellis, Tony Dagradi, Mike Pellera, Jason Marsalis, Ron Eschete’, Johnny Vidacovich, Herlin Riley, and many more.

In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Ludwig created his own eclectic Jazz Trio gaining instant accolades from critics and musicians alike for his astonishing virtuosity and prolific originality.

Since 2007, Ted has maintained a fruitful association with the Infrared Record Label. He has recorded, produced, and released four albums as a leader and has continuously performed on many other recordings as a co-leader and sideman. In 2016, Ludwig had the great opportunity to perform with orchestra an original Jazz Guitar Concerto entitled “Katrina”. The piece was composed by D.J. Sparr and commissioned by The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Ted received rave reviews for his performances of the concerto.

In 2016, Ted was the youngest inductee into The Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame.

He continues to dazzle audiences from around the world.