Lincoln Center Festival Announces Line-Up

Lincoln Center Festival 2008 presents an eclectic lineup of music this summer featuring Damon Albarn & the Honest Jon's Revue on Saturday, July 12 in Avery Fisher Hall with a splendidly diverse group of singers and musicians -- Afel Bocoum, Kokanko Sata, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Candi Staton, Lobi Traore, Simone White and Gorillaz creator and former Blur frontman Damon Albarn. Following his wildly successful Festival debut in 2006, Balkan superstar Goran Bregovic returns on Tuesday, July 8 and Wednesday, July 9 at Avery Fisher Hall to perform a repertoire of Balkan folk arrangements with his highly energetic brass ensemble, the Wedding and Funeral Band. During the last week of the Festival from July 23-26 in the Rose Theater, Laurie Anderson will present her acclaimed "concert poem," Homeland, a multi-media exploration of contemporary American politics and culture including issues surrounding the media, the idea of freedom, and the context of war.

ONE-night only event:
SATURDAY, JULY 12 AT 8PM
Damon Albarn & the Honest Jon's Revue
Featuring Afel Bocoum, Kokanko Sata, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Candi Stanton, Lobi Traore, Simone White, and Damon Albarn
Avery Fisher Hall, Broadway at 64th Street
Tickets: $30, 40, 50
FREE pre-performance conversation with Alan Scholefeld, founding member of Honest Jon's.
Moderated by Banning Eyre
Saturday, July 12, 2008 6:00 PM
Kaplan Penthouse

Lincoln Center Festival 08 will present Damon Albarn & the Honest Jon's Revue, a splendidly diverse group of artists that has one thing in common: each has recorded for Honest Jon's, the independent London-based label. Damon Albarn, best known from his days in the rock band Blur and co-creator of the wildly successful virtual band Gorillaz, co-founded the Honest Jon's label in 2002 with the landmark record shop on Portobello Road that has been selling rare and obscure music to discerning buyers for 30 years. The Honest Jon's label reflects the founders' interests, primarily African music, Jamaican reggae, and classic American soul, and their first release was the acclaimed Mali Music, featuring Albarn, Toumani Diabate, and Afel Bocoum, a sideman to the legendary Ali Farka Toure. Bocourm joins Albarn on the bill, along with skilled kamelen n'goni (three-stringed hunters' harp) musician Kokanko Sata, the nine-piece brass street band Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the incomparable R&B and gospel singer Candi Staton, Bambara bluesman Lobi Traore, and soulful folk vocalist Simone White.  

Eclectic evenings of music making have been in the Lincoln Center Festival mix since its early years. The Festival has presented  a wide variety of world fusion, hip hop, jazz, and pop music—including traditional and contemporary music from North and South Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East—in addition to showcasing artists as diverse as Elvis Costello, Wyclef Jean, Ornette Coleman, Goran Bregovic, and Youssou N'Dour. Along with the record label, Albarn—who appeared in New York last year with his new band, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen—serve as musical curators of the Honest Jon's Revue, which has been called a "chop up," Nigerian slang for a feast of great music. In the dance music culture at large, it means juxtaposition and reconstitution. For one night only, these wonderfully eclectic artists will play together and separately, as the spirit moves them.

Co-commissioned and co-produced by Lincoln Center Festival, Barbican-London and Les Nuits de Fourvière-Lyon

2 performances:
Tuesday, July 8 and Wednesday, July 9 at 8 p.m.
Goran Bregovic's Wedding and Funeral Band
Avery Fisher Hall, Broadway at 64th Street
Tickets: $30, 40, 50

Lincoln Center Festival 08 will present the return of Goran Bregovic, who made his sensational New York debut at the Festival two years ago with his concert, Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals. For this Festival appearance, Bregovic and his nine-piece band will perform songs from his upcoming CD, Alcohol—scheduled for a May 2008 release—along with material from two other recent projects: the gypsy opera, Karmen with a Happy End, and the album Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals.

A native of Serbia who now calls Paris his home base, Bregovic still makes many appearances in his home country.  At a concert there in August 2007 at the Guca Festival in front of 100,000 people was recorded for his  new release, Alcohol—so titled, the artist says, because "it's through that filter that people listen to music in Guca." On the disc, Bregovic performs several "Bjelo Dugme" songs, which he adapted for his brass band.

5 performances:
Tuesday, July 8 and Wednesday, July 9 at 8 p.m
Homeland
Written and performed by Laurie Anderson
With musicians Joey Baron, Rob Burger, Greg Cohen, and Eyvind Kang
The Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th St and Broadway
Tickets: $30, 45, 60
FREE pre-performance conversation with Laurie Anderson and Liz Diller, Lincoln Center
Redevelopment architect
Saturday, July 12, 2008 6:00 PM
Kaplan Penthouse

Lincoln Center Festival 08 presents Homeland, the latest full-length work by Laurie Anderson, the edgy master of multimedia for nearly three decades. With Homeland, Anderson has painted a musical portrait of contemporary America. "In the post-Andy Warhol America, we are seeing themes such as sex, celebrity, violence and death take new shape in politics, entertainment and contemporary technology," Anderson says. Based on this premise, Anderson's "concert-poem" questions many current fears of Americans—their obsession with security, their increasing loneliness, the power of technology and their gradual loss of freedom. In keeping with her usual style, Anderson's voice is passed through electronic filters and mixed with digital rhythms and the sounds of the unique violins she uses onstage. Organic, sensual and dreamlike, part poem and part rock concert, Homeland is an honest and haunting interpretation of the constant shifts in our contemporary culture.

Laurie Anderson makes her third appearance at the Lincoln Center Festival. In 1997, she was a guest artist during the Festival's Ornette Coleman tribute, Ornette Coleman: ? Civilization, and she presented her one-woman show, Happiness, in 2002. In April 2007, Anderson previewed Homeland at the closing gala concert Good Night, Alice, which aired on Live From Lincoln Center before Alice Tully Hall closed for renovations.

Touring internationally since 2007, this engagement of Homeland features expanded musical components and longtime Anderson collaborators Joey Baron, Rob Burger, Greg Cohen, and Eyvind Kang.

Major support for Lincoln Center Festival's presentation of Homeland is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

For more information visit www.LincolnCenter.org and register for "My Lincoln Center" to receive a Festival brochure, updates, and special offers. You may also call Lincoln Center Customer Service at 212-875-5456.

Programs and artists subject to change.