Spring 2016
Poster for An Evening of Calypso Jazz.
An Evening of Calypso Jazz
With
Etienne Charles and Frankie McIntosh
Special Guests Garvin Blake and David "Happy" Williams
Featuring Arturo O'Farrill and the Brooklyn College Big Band
Thursday, April 21, 2016
7 p.m. Pre-concert Talk with Musicians
8 p.m. Concert
Whitman Theatre, Brooklyn College
- View Poster (pdf)
Tickets
$10—General Admission
$7—Seniors
Free for CUNY students and staff with ID
More Information and Tickets
718.951.4500
brooklyncenter.org
Poster for Afro-Caribbean Music and Global Jazz. Inset Image: Etienne Charles.
Fall 2016: Music in Polycultural America
Afro-Caribbean Music and Global Jazz
with
Etienne Charles
The intersection of Caribbean music and jazz usually evokes images of Afro-Cuban Latin jazz and Nuyorican salsa. But over the last century there has been an ongoing dialogue between musicians from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean and their North American counterparts. This presentation will focus on the blending of Caribbean folk and popular music with African American jazz, emphasizing the contributions of players and composers from Trinidad, Jamaica, and other East Caribbean islands.
Trumpeter, band leader, percussionist, and composer Etienne Charles is a graduate of the Julliard School of Music and is currently associate professor of jazz studies at Michigan State University. A native of Trinidad, Professor Charles has been praised by Downbeat Magazine for his ability to "deliver his ebullient improvisations with the elegance of a world-class ballet dancer." He has recorded and performed with many jazz and popular music icons, including Monty Alexander, Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, Marcus Miller, the Count Basie Orchestra, and David Rudder. His recordings. Creole Christmas (2015), Creole Soul (2013), Kaiso (2011), Folklore (2009), and Culture Shock (2006) explore the intersection of Afro-Caribbean rhythms and instrumentation with jazz and world music. Professor Charles was recently awarded the prestigious and highly selective John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
2:15 p.m.
Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
- View Poster (pdf)
Poster for Jump Up! The Brooklyn Soca Connection. Inset image: CD cover of The Best of the Mighty Sparrow.
Jump Up! The Brooklyn Soca Connection
With
Ray Allen
For a brief period in the 1980s, Brooklyn emerged as the hub of the soca (Soul Calypso) music universe. Soca, a hybrid style of Trinidadian calypso and African-American soul/disco, flourished in Brooklyn following the rapid growth of the borough's English-speaking Caribbean community and the establishment of a Labor Day Carnival in the early 1970s. This presentation will examine Brooklyn soca as a diasporic transnational expression resulting from the cyclical flow of musical practices across national borders between the Caribbean and Brooklyn.
Ray Allen is professor of music and American studies at Brooklyn College. He has authored numerous books and articles on American folk and popular music, including his coedited collection Island Sounds in the Global City: Caribbean Popular Music in New York. He is currently working on a book project titled: Jump Up! Caribbean Carnival Music in New York.
Monday, March 21, 2016
11 a.m.
Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
- View Poster (pdf)
Poster for The Music of Cuba: 20th and 21st Centuries. Inset Image: Guido López-Gavilán.
The Music of Cuba: 20th and 21st Centuries
With
Guido López-Gavilán
Renowned composer and conductor Guido López-Gavilán is president of the Havana Festival and chairman of the Orchestral Conducting Department at the Instituto Superior de Arte. He has conducted all of the Cuban symphonic orchestras and has been invited as guest composer and conductor to events throughout the world.
He is a leader in the development of the Cuban Youth Orchestra Movement, founding and conducting symphony and chamber orchestras that have performed in and outside of Cuba. Among his many awards are the Audience Prize at the 2006 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival, Cuba's National Culture Award, Chile's UNESCO Medal, and the Recognition Award granted by the Cuban Union of Writers and Artists for his life's work.
Monday, February 8, 2016
2:15 p.m.
Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
- View Poster (pdf)
