MUSIC
Colm Wilkinson
Mainstage Theatre
Monday, September 27
7:30pm
$53.50, $47.50, $41.50
Broadway & Beyond
Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier nominee and Helen Hays and Theatre World Award winning performer Colm Wilkinson is one of theater's most beloved voices. Theater lovers around the world need no introduction to the man who originated such roles as Jean Valjean in
Les Miserables and the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera.
Broadway and Beyond gives fans old and new the opportunity to see and hear a more intimate and personal side of this phenomenal performer. The concert is a two-hour evening of music and stories. Theatre favorites such as “Music of the Night,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Somewhere,” and his signature song “Bring Him Home” anchor the experience. Colm includes a selection of Irish classics such as well as more contemporary favorites to add another dimension to a program rich in musical theater and showcasing the complete depth, range, and variety of Colm’s talents.
A consistent audience favorite, this will be Colm's fourth appearance at the Center for the Arts.
Sponsored in part by:
Serj Tankian - CANCELLED
Mainstage Theatre
Tuesday, September 28
After two consecutive European tours and full promotion schedule, Reprise Records' recording artist Serj Tankian regretfully announces that he will postpone his upcoming fall tour until a later date, after the release of his upcoming album.
Ticket refunds are available at point of purchase. Ticketmaster.com and charge by phone purchases will be automatically refunded.
Max Weinberg Big Band
Mainstage Theatre
Friday, October 8
8:00pm
$36.50, $31.50, Students $26.50
Entering the third act of an already celebrated career,
Max Weinberg presents the
Max Weinberg Big Band. Building upon his seventeen years as the leader of what the
Washington Post called, "the best band in late night television," the Max Weinberg Big Band is a bold, swinging fifteen piece aggregation that continues the traditions established by Max’s musical heroes - among whom, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Doc Severinsen, and Maynard Ferguson lead the pack.
Judging by the crowd’s enthusiastic reaction to the Max Weinberg Big Band’s debut performance in Miami during Christmas Week of 2009, their approach to the hard-driving instrumental jazz that was a staple of television variety shows in the 1960’s and 1970’s has been sorely missed and fulfills a long held dream by Max to bring it back to the world’s stages.
Millions also know Max from his now 36 year career performing and recording with
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. Though citing his work through the years with Bruce and The E Street Band as, “the attainment of everything a twelve year old drummer from the suburbs of Jersey ever dared to dream,” Max has kept himself busy for nearly four decades performing with the likes of Paul McCartney, Sting, Tom Jones, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bono of U2, Levon Helm and the Band, and countless more music icons.
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Rodrigo y Gabriela
Mainstage Theatre
Monday, October 11
7:30PM
$37.50, $32.50, Groups $34.50
Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero have been playing guitar together for more than fifteen years. From their first steps as teenage thrash metal guitarists in their native Mexico City, through a stint as street musicians in Dublin, to the universally acclaimed globe straddling tour machine they are today; theirs is a musical union where mutual understanding goes beyond intuitive and into the realms of Zen.
In 2010, the duo reached new heights and audiences across the United States with performances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, “Lopez Tonight”, “The Today Show”, and even within the White House when they shared the stage with Beyonce as the musical guests for The President’s State Dinner with The President of Mexico. In April, Rodrigo y Gabriela reached another milestone with a sold out performance at Radio City Music Hall.
To date, Rodrigo y Gabriela have sold over 1,000,000 albums worldwide and become a fixture on the world music circuit. They are particularly known for their incendiary live shows.
"Whenever my father and I discuss great concerts he brings up the first time he saw the Jimi Hendrix Experience. 'When those three guys walked out on stage,' he always says, 'I say there's no way just the three of them could make all that sound like on the record. And they didn't. They made more.' I always understand what he was getting at but I never really appreciated how truly awesome that sensation in until seeing Rodrigo Y Gabriela."
-Riverfront Times (St. Louis, MO)
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Pat Metheny
Mainstage Theatre
Saturday, October 16
8:00pm
$43.50, $33.50, Students $26.50, Groups $39.50
The Orchestrion Tour
Using a completely new kind of modern technology to expand his musical vision, 17-time Grammy-winning guitarist Pat Metheny will for the first time perform all original compositions in concert entirely alone - an ensemble presentation with no other musicians onstage. He has created a new Orchestrion, an ensemble of mechanical instruments controlled entirely from Metheny's guitar and pen performing a unique program of original music. This will be a performance unlike any other.
Orchestrion brings a musical idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries into the 21st. It is a large multi-instrument devices that utilizes actual orchestral instruments of various types. Metheny's concept includes a large ensemble of acoustic instruments including several pianos, drum kit, marimbas, "guitar-bots," dozens of percussion instruments and even cabinets of careful tuned bottles. Through Metheny's guitar playing and compositional mind, his original pieces showcase the instruments as they are struck, and otherwise played via solenoid switches and pneumatics. Metheny worked for months with a brilliant team of scientists and engineers to develop and assemble the "New Orchestrion" for this project.
Over the course of more than three decades, guitarist Pat Metheny has set himself apart from the jazz mainstream, expanding and blurring boundaries and musical styles. His record-setting body of work includes seventeen Grammy Awards in twelve seperate categories; a series of influential trio recordings; award winning solo albums; scores for hit Hollywood motion pictures; and collaborations and duets with major artists.
Sponsored in part by:
Check out this video on the Orchestrion project
WYRK Fall Acoustic Concert
Mainstage Theatre
Wednesday, October 20
7:30pm
$27.50
Tickets on sale Friday, August 20 at 10AM
Featuring:
American Idol's Danny Gokey
Steel Magnolia
The Band Perrry
Experience Hendrix
Mainstage Theatre
Tuesday, November 2
7:30pm
$76.50, $66.50, $56.50
Tickets go on sale Friday, August 27 at 10am
Experience Hendrix is a concert featuring an all-star line up of music greats paying homage to the music and legacy of Jimi Hendrix. The fifth edition of this celebrated tour will visit Buffalo for the first time this fall, after performing to countless sold-out crowds across the country.
The artists currently scheduled to perform include:
Billy Cox, Steve Vai, Jonny Lang, Kenny Wanye Shepard, Eric Johnson, Robert Randolph, Living Colour, Chris Layton (from Double Trouble), Ernie Isley, and the Slide Brothers. Fans can expect to see once in a lifetime collaboration by these artists performing such Hendrix signature songs as "Fire," "Purple Haze," "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" and many more.
The
Experience Hendrix Tour is presented by Experience Hendrix,LLC the Hendrix family-owned company founded by James A. "Al" Hendrix, Jimi's father, and entrusted with preserving and protecting the legacy of Jimi Hendrix. Janie Hendrix, CEO of
Experience Hendrix, noted, "Everyday, we see how Jimi's musical legacy continues to transcend generational and cultural boundaries. This tour is our way to give a live concert experience that reflects the genius of his unifying spirit. Part of our mission is to share Jimi's music with audiences of all ages and these tours continue to play a key role in fufilling that vision. As my brother Jimi would say, "We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds...cause there are so many sleeping people."
Emmylou Harris
Mainstage Theatre
Wednesday, November 10
7:30pm
$56.50, $46.50
Special Guest: The Low Anthem
Few performers have left as profound an impact on contemporary music as Emmylou Harris. Blessed with a crystalline voice, a remarkable gift for phrasing, and a restless creative spirit, she traveled a singular artistic path, proudly carrying the torch of "Cosmic American Music" passed down by her mentor, Gram Parsons.
A twelve-time Grammy winner and Billboard Century Award recipient, Emmylou’s contribution as a singer and songwriter of her unique brand of sweet country spans 40 years. She has recorded more than 25 albums and has collaborated with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, Elvis Costello, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and Mark Knopfler. In recognition of her remarkable career, Harris was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008.
Sponsored in part by:
Classic Albums Live: Sticky Fingers
Mainstage Theatre
Friday, November 12
8:00pm
$27.50, Students (any school) $17.50
Classic Albums Live presents:
The Rolling Stones -
Sticky FingersClassic Albums Live (CAL) will take one of rock’s greatest albums –
The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers and recreate it live on stage using some of the world's greatest musicians, note for note, cut for cut.
Sticky Fingers was originally released in 1971 and went to #1 on the Billboard charts propelled by such hits as “Brown Sugar,” “Wild Horses,” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”
After performing the album the album in its entirety, CAL will play another set of Stones favorites.
Toronto based CAL is a concert series in which top musicians perform classic rock albums in their entirety. A different lineup of musicians performs each album; however, there is a core group that frequently takes part in the performances.
“What separates CAL from the flock of tribute bands currently making the rounds is the group’s singular emphasis on the music, rather than stage show, lighting effects, costumes, impersonations and the like. Most of these classic recordings were ambitious studio projects, often employing considerable overdubbing, orchestral scoring, layering of vocal harmonies and so forth. This means that even the artists responsible for creating them in the first place never really re-created the studio recordings note for note, harmony for harmony.”
- Jeff Miers,
The Buffalo News
Straight No Chaser
Mainstage Theatre
Tuesday, November 16
7:30pm
$41.50, $31.50, $26.50
Groups $37.50, $28.50
Returning by popular demand!
If the phrase “male a cappella group” conjures up an image of students in blue blazers, ties, and khakis singing traditional college songs on ivied campuses… think again. Straight No Chaser (SNC) are neither strait-laced nor straight-faced, but neither are they vaudeville-style kitsch. As original member Randy Stine comments, “We take the music very seriously; we just don’t take ourselves too seriously.” In the process, they are reinventing the idea of a cappella on the modern pop landscape.
Originally formed over a dozen years ago while students together at Indiana University, the group has reassembled and reemerged as a phenomenon – with a massive fanbase, over 20 million views on YouTube (check out their take on “12 Days of Christmas”), numerous national TV appearances, and success with two holiday releases, 2008’s Holiday Spirits and 2009’s Christmas Cheers. In an era when so much pop music is the product of digital processing and vocal pro-tooling, Straight No Chaser is the real deal – the captivating sound of ten unadulterated human voices coming together to make extraordinary music that is moving people in a fundamental sense…and with a sense of humor.
Brian McKnight
Mainstage Theatre
Sunday, November 21
8:00pm
$76.50, $66.50
Proceeds to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Buffalo
Brian McKnight has earned himself a spot in contemporary music history with the release of 13 albums (to date), several of which have gone platinum to triple platinum, and has sold over 20 million albums worldwide. For his outstanding work in music, Brian has received numerous awards and nominations including Grammys, Soul Train Awards, NAACP Image Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, BET Awards and American Music Awards. With seemingly endless talent and a worldwide fan base in the tens of millions.
Brian has also hosted "Soul Session Countdown with Brian McKnight" on BETJ and co-hosted "The Brian McKnight Morning Show" on KTWV the Wave Smooth Jazz radio station in LA for 2 years. A second radio show titled “The Brian McKnight Show” took the air in 2008 and is syndicated on ABC radio coast to coast. On top of his many multi-media endeavors, Brian continues a very busy touring schedule throughout the duration of 2010 and 2011.
This concert is presented by the Derico of East Amherst Corporation and its employees, a locally owned 12 outlet McDonald's organization. Concert proceeds benefit the families of the Ronald McDonald House of Buffalo. Since opening its doors to families of seriously ill or injured children more than 25 years ago, the Ronald McDonald house of Buffalo has provided comfortable, affordable lodging for 17,00 families from Western New York and around the world. The Ronald McDonald House is a family's "home-away-from-home" when their child requires specialized medical care at a Buffalo hospital.
Chris Isaak
Mainstage Theatre
Wednesday, December 8
7:30pm
$60, $54, $46
Over the course of Chris Issak's career, he has released nine extraordinary albums, twelve singles, been nominated for two Grammy awards, appeared in several motion pictures, and starred in his own critically-acclaimed TV series. His legendary shows with is longtime band, Silvertone, have entertained tens of thousands of people for over two decades. Even his hair has its own fan club. Throughout his impressive recording career, Isaak has tunefully and artfully explored the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of love, as well as other matter of profound human interest. He has done so with an abiding respect for popular music's past, but as the same time with a clear and vital passion for the here and now.
Hot Tuna Blues
Mainstage Theatre
Wednesday, February 2
7:30pm
$39, Students $26.50
Starring: Hot Tuna, Charlie Musselwhite and Jim Lauderdale
From their days playing together as teenagers to their current acoustic and electric blues, probably no one has more consistently led American music for the last fifty years than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of
Hot Tuna. Kaukonen and Casady were friends and bandmates in high school. When Jorma co-founded the Jefferson Airplane, the iconic psychedelic band of the late ‘60s, he invited Jack to join. The Kaukonen-Casady duo created much of the Jefferson Airplane’s signature sound, and Jorma’s lead and fingerstyle guitar playing characterizes some of the band’s most memorable tracks. From their jam sessions, Hot Tuna was born, and the group has toured and recorded steadily since then for forty years. Along with Kaukonen and Casady, multi-instrumentalist Barry Mitterhoff and a drummer perform both the acoustic and electric Hot Tuna programs. Along with the other members of The Jefferson Airplane, Jorma and Jack were 1996 inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Charlie Musselwhite incorporates a lifetime of musical experience, from his early Mississippi Delta days to his immersion in Chicago urban blues and beyond. With eighteen W.C. Handy Awards and six Grammy nominations to his credit, he is firmly entrenched in musical history. Charlie has been awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Monterey Blues Festival and the San Javier Jazz Festival in Spain, the Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and a Mississippi Trail Marker on the square of his birthplace, Kosciusko Mississippi.. Called “the world’s greatest living blues harmonica player” by New York Press Charlie has collaborated with Eddie Vedder, Tom Waits, Ben Harper, Bonnie Raitt, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Gov’t Mule, INXS, Mickey Hart, George Thorogood and personal friend and best man at his wedding, John Lee Hooker.
Two-time Grammy-winner
Jim Lauderdale is one of the premier Americana and Bluegrass artists in music today. He has hosted the Americana Awards for six straight years since 2002, when he was winner for the Americana Artist of the Year and the Song of The Year. 2002 also brought his first Grammy Award for Lost in the Lonesome Pines with Ralph Stanley. His second came for The Bluegrass Diaries in 2007. A multi-talented musician, Jim is equally known for his song writing - Patty Loveless, The Dixie Chicks, Mark Chestnut, Vince Gill, and George Strait are just a handful of the artists who have recorded his songs. Jim's most recent collaborations are with Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and George Jones. His current CD, Honey Songs with The Dream Players, features Jim with legendary guitarist James Burton and renowned session-man Al Perkins. The release led to national television appearances for the band on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Sponsored in part by:
Kind of Blue - Jimmy Cobb's So What Band
Mainstage Theatre
Saturday, February 12
8:00pm
$34.50, Students $21.50
2009 marked the 50th Anniversary of the original release date of Miles Davis’
Kind Of Blue. The album was released in August 1959, stunning the jazz world by practically creating a new language of music. Its influence goes far beyond jazz. Kind of Blue is universally considered to be one of the best albums of all time, of any genre. Fifty years later,
Kind of Blue—the epitome of spontaneous invention—is still the best selling jazz album ever.
Legendary jazz drummer, Jimmy Cobb (the only surviving member from the original recording) leads a contemporary all-star band performing their interpretations of
Kind of Blue's
five masterpieces: “So What”, “Freddie Freeloader”, “Blue In Green”, “All Blues”, and “Flamenco Sketches” plus other classics by Davis, John Coltrane, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, and original compositions inspired by this era.
Jimmy Cobb was the recipient of the 2009 NEA Jazz Masters Award in a ceremony at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall in October 2008. He is the elder statesman of all of the incredible Miles Davis bands, performing with the master from 1957 until 1963 on the seminal recordings:
Sketches of Spain,
Someday My Prince Will Come,
Live at Carnegie Hall,
Live at the Blackhawk,
Porgy and Bess, and many other watershed Miles Davis recordings in addition to
Kind of Blue. Cobb has also performed with Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Dizzy Gillespie, Wes Montgomery, Sarah Vaughn, Sonny Stitt, and Nancy Wilson among countless others.
Drumline Live
Mainstage Theatre
Wednesday, February 16
7:30pm
$32, Students (any school) $22
Drumline Live kicks off its second US tour in the 2010-2011 season following its extremely successful 70-performance international tour in the 2008-2009 season. Drumline Live's energetic cast has honed its precision and energy with years of training in marching band programs across the southern United States.
This versatile group of musicians and dancers brings an explosive energy and athleticism to an eclectic mix of sounds. Equally at home with the hottest contemporary hip hop, R&B, classic Motown tunes, and the rousing sounds of the great brass tradition, Drumline Live is thrilled to share the American Marching Band experience with a wider audience.
Bruce in the USA
Mainstage Theatre
Friday, February 25
8:00pm
$29.50, Students $21.50
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's show at HSBC Arena last year may have been their last show (or for at least awhile). Here's your chance to experience the next best thing!
Bruce In The USA is a note-perfect and visually accurate recreation of a Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band concert.
Matt Ryan, from the World Famous “Legends In Concert” cast, played the Springsteen character for eight years in their full scale Las Vegas show. The great success with “Legends” evolved his character into the Bruce In The USA show. His amazing portrayal of “The Boss” (not to mention his jaw-dropping resemblance) is as close as you can get to see the real thing in concert. Backed by a strong, powerful Clarence “The Big Man” Clemons, and a smokin’ handed “Little Stevie”, Bruce In The USA takes this genre of performance art to a whole new level. Making it the World’s #1 Tribute to the E. St. Band’s legacy.
They’ve been met with critical acclaim by even the toughest skeptics, from the Stone Pony, Asbury Park to large theatres across the country, where sell out crowds are on their feet from the first song to the last.
E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons joined the band on stage in New York, claiming after the show that it was the greatest Tribute he’s ever seen!
Buddy Guy
Mainstage Theatre
Monday, April 4
7:30pm
$43.50, $39.50, Groups $39.50
Any discussion of Buddy Guy invariably invovles a recitation of his colossal musical resume and hard-earned accolades. He's a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a chief guitar influence to rock titans like Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, and Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago's fabled West Side sound, and a living link to the city's halcyon days of electric blues. Buddy has recieved five Grammy Awards, 23 W.C. Handy Blues Awards (the most any artist has recieved), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artist achievement, Buddy and his music remain as vital as ever.
Sponsored in part by:
