Bass Performance Hall Welcomes Benise, 10/18

Performing Arts Fort Worth kicks off its 2010-2011 season at Bass Performance Hall with Benise - The Spanish Guitar on Monday, October 18, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $22-$66 and are on sale NOW!  

Roni Benise is a self-taught guitarist whose shows combine elements of rock, samba, tango, flamenco and salsa music and dancing. In 2006, he won an Emmy Award for his Nights of Fire! production, broadcast on PBS. He was also featured on ABC's hit TV show, "Dancing with the Stars," earlier this year.

Heralded by the Santa Barbara News Press as the "Latin Riverdance," Benise - The Spanish Guitar is a lavish new production featuring the Nights of Fire! cast, complete with flamenco dancers, live actors and several musicians. The production will also feature gorgeous film footage of Benise's world travels.

Completely self-taught, the Nebraska-born musician started playing guitar at age 11. In his teens, Benise performed with local rock bands. Eventually, he moved to Los Angeles, where he fell in love with flamenco music, causing him to move from electric guitar to nylon-string classical guitar.
 "I stumbled into Spanish guitar listening to the radio and something clicked," Benise told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I went out and got a nylon string guitar and started relearning the instrument. No effects, whammy bars, tremolos or wah-wah pedals - it's just you and the guitar."
At the time, however, Spanish guitar was a tough sell in Los Angeles. After being turned down by several record labels and clubs, Benise put together a band and performed street concerts - everywhere from neighborhood corners to Disneyland. Word quickly spread of Benise's genre-defying shows.

"When I first started playing Spanish guitar, we couldn't find a place to play," he said in the San Francisco Chronicle interview. "So we went out on the street and played in tourist areas and would get a line of people at the CD table. That's what put food on the table for my five-piece band."
That money was also used to finance a string of CDs - all released on Benise's own label, Rosanegra Music - as well as mount bigger and better musical productions. Soon, Benise and his entourage of dancers and musicians were renting 2,000-seat venues - and selling them out.
Benise's show reflects those scrappy, organic beginnings. "(This) began on the streets," he said. "Not in a corporate boardroom."

To charge tickets by phone, call (817) 212-4280 in Fort Worth; 1-877-212-4280 (toll free) outside Fort Worth; or order online at www.basshall.com. Tickets are also available at the Bass Performance Hall ticket office at 525 Commerce Street. Ticket office hours: Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

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