KANSAS, Los Lobos, Ana Gasteyer, TAO: DRUM HEART and More Set for Poway OnStage's 2017-18 Season
By: BWW News Desk Jun. 08, 2017
The Poway OnStage 2017/18 season opens with the arena rock of KANSAS. It continues with GRAMMY winning artists: Los Lobos, Aaron Neville, BJ Thomas and Roger McGuinn. Saturday Night Live alumna and Broadway leading lady Ana Gasteyer brings her cabaret show. Local music takes center stage with Six String Society's Sounds of the Big Easy and roots rockers Berkley Hart. Cameron Carpenter brings his international touring organ and a wide repertoire of classical and modern pieces. Love Letters From Vietnam is a unique live theatrical musical performance of Alex Woodward's songs written for the daughter of Vietnam vet Sgt. John K. Fuller. TAO: Drum Heart closes the season with their world tour of large-scale Japanese taiko drumming, dance and martial arts.
Poway OnStage's President and CEO, Michael Rennie, announces the 2017-2018 Professional Performance Series. "While this season features the internationally acclaimed, award-winning musicians that our audience has come to expect from us - including KANSAS, BJ Thomas, Roger McGuinn, Aaron Neville and Los Lobos - we also continue to champion our vibrant local music scene by presenting Berkley Hart on the 20th anniversary of the release of their award-winning debut album Wreck n' Sow in a concert we are dubbing Wreck n' Show. We're also proud to partner with Six String Society and their show, Sounds of the Big Easy. Our eclectic offerings include Ana Gasteyer (Saturday Night Live, Wicked) in a one-of-a-kind cabaret show, Cameron Carpenter performing his extensive classical and modern repertoire on his international touring organ. And, as an epic conclusion to the season, we present the power and spectacle of Japanese Taiko drumming in TAO:Drum Heart. For 27 years, our mission has been to bring powerful live performances to our patrons, and we think this season accomplishes that handily."
KANSAS
Tuesday, September 19, 2017 | 8:00pm
Saturday, September 30, 2017 | 8:00pm BJ Thomas has had a half a century in music since his first gold selling hit on Scepter Records. The singer, a five-time GRAMMY and two time Dove Award winner, has sold more than 70 million records and is ranked in Billboard's Top 50 most played artists of the past 50 years. Known for hits "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song," Thomas straddles categories achieving success in multiple genres. Known initially for his pop and rock output, Thomas turned to country music in the '70s to earning five GRAMMY awards and 15 Top 40 hits. Four of the singer's GRAMMY awards were earned from his work in gospel music in the late '70s and '80s. Roger McGuinn
Saturday, October 7, 2017 | 8:00pm Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn is a prolific songwriter and a true guitar innovator. He'll share an evening of songs and stories from his career including the pioneering folk/rock sounds of the Byrds as heard on hits like "Mr. Tamborine Man," "Eight Miles High" and "My Back Pages" - songs that combine vocal harmonies and the signature "jingle-jangle" sound he created playing his12 string Rickenbacker guitar. Able to play the banjo, guitar, twelve string-guitar and even a custom seven string guitar, McGuinn is a versatile performer on stringed instruments. During his time with The Byrds, McGuinn developed two innovative and very influential styles of electric guitar playing. The first was "jingle-jangle" - ringing arpeggios based on banjo finger picking styles he learned while at the Old Town School of Folk. The second style was a merging of saxophonist John Coltrane's free-jazz atonalities, which hinted at the droning of the sitar - a style of playing, first heard on The Byrds' 1966 single "Eight Miles High", which was influential in psychedelic rock. "I practiced eight hours a day on that 'Ric,'" says McGuinn, "I really worked it. In those days, acoustic 12s had wide necks and thick strings that were spaced pretty far apart, so they were hard to play. But the Rick's slim neck and low action let me explore jazz and blues scales up and down the fretboard, and incorporate more hammer-ons and pull-offs into my solos. I also translated some of my banjo picking techniques to the 12-string. By combining a flat pick with metal finger picks on my middle and ring fingers, I discovered I could instantly switch from fast single-note runs to banjo rolls and get the best of both worlds."Ana Gasteyer
Saturday, November 4, 2017 | 8:00pm Comedian, actor and singer Ana Gasteyer is a true Renaissance woman, first starring in six seasons of Saturday Night Live then going on to create the role of Elphaba for Chicago's sit-down production of Wicked. With numerous TV and movie credits to her name, Gasteyer now puts her comedic chops and Broadway-honed voice to good use in this one-of-a-kind cabaret act featuring music, comedy and stories. She sings jazz standards, Broadway showstoppers and songs from her album "I'm Hip" that blend her unique world view and singing skills in a style reminiscent of 1940s jazz. "If you're wondering what it means to be hip nowadays comedian and singer Ana Gasteyer has an answer. Chirping a revised, up-to-the-minute version of the jazz standard "I'm Hip" at the Café Carlye on Tuesday evening, she urged fans to 'follow me on Instagram,' and boasted of wearing locally sourced vegan clogs,' tweeting from her bike, drawing zombie cartoons and collecting 'my own eggs from my prize heirloom hens." -The New York TimesLove Letters From Vietnam
Saturday, November 18, 2018 | 8:00pm Love Letters From Vietnam is Alex Woodard's new book, album and live performance piece that tells the story of Sgt. John K. Fuller who served in the Vietnam War. The book captures Sgt. Fuller's remarkable correspondence with his daughter -stories of service and sacrifice, love and redemption. The show features Woodard along with GRAMMY award winning, platinum-selling artists and local musicians, including Jon Foreman, Molly Jenson, Jordan Pundik, Jack Tempchin, Sean Watkins, Nena Anderson, and Graham Nancarrow, among others (artists subject to change). After years of chasing his dreams, singer-songwriter Alex Woodard finally had a record deal and an album to promote. He offered to write a song for anybody who pre-ordered his self-titled release; all they had to do was send him a letter about their story, and he would write and record a song just for them at his kitchen table. From this, For the Sender was born: part songwriters circle, part story telling session, Love Letters From Vietnam is a collective of musicians, led by Woodard, who put to music letters written by the living celebrating those they have lost.An Evening with Aaron Neville
Saturday, December 2, 2017 | 8:00pm As leader of the Neville Brothers, Aaron Neville's name is synonymous with New Orleans soul. His inimitable voice has graced hits such as "That's What My Love is For" and GRAMMY winning duets with Linda Ronstadt ("Don't Know Much," "All My Life") and Trisha Yearwood ("I Fall to Pieces"). Now, the voice of New Orleans comes to Poway for a holiday show. "Now, I don't have to be out there grinding as much," he says. I need time off to be with family and just live, instead of just giving it all to the road. I think all of us needed a change. There comes a time when you look at life and think about your mortality and say, How much have I got left?' And I wanted a chance to do some of the stuff that I'd always wanted to do, and I couldn't do all of it. That was a hard gig, with the brothers. There wasn't nobody fighting or anything like that. I wrote 'em a poem, saying what my brothers meant to me. But I wanted to do something else in my life before I got out of here. And I've got a lot more. As I say, I've got a long ways to go and a short time to make it in!" Cameron Carpenter
Saturday, February 17, 2018 | 8:00pm Organist Cameron Carpenter's repertoire, from the complete works of J. S. Bach to film scores, his original compositions and hundreds of transcriptions and arrangements - is large and diverse. In 2012 he was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Award, is the first solo organist ever nominated for a GRAMMY Award, and has appeared with international orchestras around the world. He is the first concert organist in history to champion the digital organ as the future of the instrument. In 2014, Carpenter launched his International Touring Organ, a monumental cross-genre digital organ built to Carpenter's own specifications. This innovative instrument has allowed Carpenter to do what few have ever done: make extensive tours of Europe and the USA bringing the pipe organ to communities where it had previously been unheard. His Sony Music debut album, If You Could Read My Mind, entered Billboard's Traditional Classical chart at No. 1. A child prodigy, Carpenter trained at the American Boychoir School and the North Carolina School of the Arts and holds two degrees from The Juilliard School. He has spoken and debated at think tanks and conferences including TED, IdeaCity, The Entertainment Gathering and many more.Six String Society's
Sounds of the Big Easy
Saturday, February 24, 2017 | 8:00pm Sounds of the Big Easy is the latest theatrical music production from Six String Society. Each show's theme is unique while mixing theater, multi-media with local Southern California musicians. Hosted by Mr. Gregory Page, Sounds of the Big Easy features the talents of numerous local musicians. Mr. Page has opened shows for Bob Dylan, Jason Mraz, Judy Collins and Leon Russell. He has worked with Jason Mraz, John Doe, Jewel, John C. Reilly and Tom Brosseau. The Euphoria Brass Band is a San Diego based brass jazz band which has worked with Trombone Shorty, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Cowboy Mouth, Rebirth Brass Band, Funky Meters and Big Sam's Funky Nation. Also on the bill is Leonard Patton. The Troubador says " He is a dynamic singer with a great deal of presence in his voice, and he does not readily fit into a musical classification." The Bayou Brothers, are a Zydeco band with origins in Louisiana's dance clubs sound. Artists subject to change. Check PowayOnStage.org for most up-to-date lineup. Los Lobos
An Acoustic Show
Friday, March 16, 2018 | 8pm Los Lobos bring their Latin-infused East LA rock to Poway OnStage for an acoustic set covering their GRAMMY winning 30-year career. Thirty years that have passed since Los Lobos released their debut album, Just Another Band from East L.A. Louie Perez, the band's drummer, calls their powerhouse mix of rock, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues and traditional Spanish and Mexican music "the soundtrack of the barrio." Says Cesar Rosas: "When I listen to our catalog, doing things more spontaneously in the studio has led to some of our best work." Adds Perez: "Unlike many bands that write, gather and catalog material between studio releases, Los Lobos prefers to create their magic on the fly when they decide it's time to record." Los Lobos were already East L.A. neighborhood legends, Sunset Strip regulars and a Grammy Award winning band (Best Mexican-American/Tejano Music Performance) by the time they recorded their major label debut How Will The Wolf Survive? in 1984. Although the album's name and title song were inspired by a National Geographic article about real life wolves in the wild, the band-David Hidalgo, Louie Perez, Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano and Steve Berlin-saw parallels with their struggle to gain mainstream rock success while maintaining their Mexican roots. Berkley Hart
Wreck 'N' Show
20th Anniversary of Wreck 'N' Sow
Saturday, April 14, 2018 | 8pm San Diego Music Award winners and local favorites Berkley Hart return to Poway OnStage, after two consecutive sold out shows here (Oh Berkley, Where Hart Thou? and The Last Waltz) they return for Wreck 'N Show, a 20th Anniversary live performance of their debut Wreck 'N' Sow album. Both Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart emerged from the Southern California coffeehouse circuit. As a duo for more than ten years now, they have making appearances at the Kerrville Folk Festival, as well as playing venues including The Birchmere and The Bluebird Café. In 2005, they staged the first "O Berkley, Where Hart Thou?" a mulit-artist extravaganza that features Americana and Bluegrass music from the film "O Brother Where Art Thou." Berkley Hart have since presented 3 additional shows, featuring different performers. Additionally, the duo continues the "Berkley Hart House Concert Revolution." They ask fans to host an annual Berkley Hart show in their own homes and invite the people they know. They've played hundreds of concerts across the country and toured internationally, and have helped establish some now well-known series.TAO: Drum Heart
Friday, April 27, 2018 | 8pm With visits to 23 countries and performances for 7 million spectators, Japanese drum artists TAO: Drum Heart comes to Poway OnStage. See TAO's only 2018 San Diego performance at Poway OnStage. Drum Heart is the latest production from TAO, internationally-acclaimed percussion artists. TAO's modern, high-energy performances showcasing the ancient art of Japanese drumming have transfixed audiences worldwide. TAO: Drum Heart Combines highly physical, large-scale drumming with contemporary costumes, precise choreography and large scale visual elements.
The Poway OnStage's 2017/18 Professional Performance Series takes place at The Poway Center for The Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Rd. Poway, CA. 92064 corner of Titan Way. Prices: GEICO Youth Tickets (12 and under) - $24; Adults - $44 and up. Prices subject to change. Contact the Box Office at 858-748-0505 or go online at PowayOnStage.org. The Box Office is open 12-5pm Fridays, 10-3pm Saturday and two hours before curtain on show days.
Due to its generous sponsorship, GEICO Youth Tickets (for age 12 and under) are half off regular pricing. Discounts are available for seniors (65+), active duty military, and students (12-22). Group discounts are available for groups of 10 or more by calling 858-668-4797.
Poway OnStage, (a dba of The Poway Center for the Performing Arts Foundation), is a 26-year-old non-profit organization that offers a professional performing arts series, including music, dance, theater, comedy and more by nationally and internationally-renowned performers. Poway OnStage also hosts an Arts in Education Initiative that serves more than 4,300 students in the Poway Unified School District. Its Arts in Education Initiative programs include a free, one-week musical theater camp; Introduction to Instruments assemblies; Master Classes with visiting artists; and reduced price youth theater tickets, made possible by GEICO. Visit www.PowayOnStage.org.
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