Wixen Music AUTHENTIC VOICES FESTIVAL Comes to Pepperdine Center for the Arts

The Wixen Music Authentic Voices Festival presents some of the best of both established and emerging American songwriting talent, including Andrew Bird and Lucinda Williams, over two days at Pepperdine University's Smothers Theatre on Saturday, September 23 and Sunday, September 24 from 4 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. Food trucks will be on-site to offer snacks and meals.

Tickets, starting at $50 per performance day, are available August 21 by calling (310) 506-4522 or visiting arts.pepperdine.edu.

Bringing together bold and brilliant voices from each corner of the American rock, country, blues, and folk spectrum, the Wixen Music Authentic Voices Festival is a unique opportunity to see both internationally acclaimed songwriting darlings and emerging talent in the intimate setting of Smothers Theatre on the Malibu coast.

The weekend festival includes two separate line-ups on Saturday, September 23 and Sunday, September 24. Each day will treat audiences to four unique talents from the American music stratum. Some artists will be playing acoustically or in stripped-down band configurations to better showcase their songs.

"We came up with the idea for the Authentic Voices Festival in order to showcase some of the great contemporary American songwriting talent that we work with," says Randall Wixen, President of Wixen Music Publishing. "These are all great writers who can evoke emotions and tell stories with words and melodies, and not just loop a beat and layer on auto-tuned vocals. The artists will be playing true songs, and we may even have a few surprises."

Saturday features an Alternative Voices-focused line-up of alternative rock band Wildling, International Folk Music Awards Artist of the Year Parker Millsap, influential acoustic guitarist Jonathan Richman, and multi-instrumentalist and whistler Andrew Bird.

Sunday features an Americana Voices-focused line-up of wicked country lyricist Mike Stinson, the genre-bending dark folk storyteller The White Buffalo, Nashville country music outlaw Elizabeth Cook, and singular Grammy-winning songwriter Lucinda Williams.

Saturday, September 23

Los Angeles alternative rock band Wildling has received rave reviews through their month-long residency at The Satellite, a tour of North America with Young the Giant, and high-profile tracks on ABC's Nashville. Their first major label release, Here, comes out on Warner Bros. Records on September 1.

International Folk Music Award's Artist of the Year Parker Millsap has earned his acclaimed reputation with captivating live performances, his soulful sound, and character-driven narratives that rivets audiences through a voice that "has the depth of some of the best blues musicians...the wild and dirty sound that comes from a life of hard living" (Tulsa World.)

Jonathan Richman founded the influential proto-punk band the Modern Lovers in 1970 along with Dave Robinson (Cars) and Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads), and has since toured as a guitarist and singer/songwriter. With a style firmly rooted in American rock and roll, Richman's songs are "quirkily framed life lessons, which he pulls off by keeping them personal and funny" (Now Toronto).

Internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, whistler and songwriter Andrew Bird has synthesized jazz, country blues, and folk music into his own unique brand of pop, spilling his singular voice into a career that includes recording with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, appearing as "Dr. Stringz" on Jack's Big Music Show, and headlining concerts at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, and festivals worldwide.

Sunday, September 24

Named Best Country Artist of the Year by Los Angeles Magazine, Mike Stinson has written his very own version of the American songbook and developed an expansive live show that, as The Morton Report puts it, "taken country and rock and boiled them down to their essence before injecting everything with the kind of ju-ju that Gram Parsons died for."

The White Buffalo explores the grey area between genres, carving out a sound rooted in dark folk, countrified soul, cinematic storytelling and roadhouse-worthy rock with hard-hitting songs, including the Emmy-nominated "Come Join the Murder," featured on shows like Sons of Anarchy and Californication.

The New York Times has called Nashville singer/songwriter Elizabeth Cook a "sharp and surprising country singer" with her knife-sharp take on heartache and hardship that's cathartic and visceral, a transcendent reflection on hard times, survival, and rebirth. She has played the Gran Old Opry more times than any other performer.

A Grammy-winning singer/songwriter often described as the "female Bob Dylan," Lucinda Williams has achieved cultish adoration through her meticulous attention to detail with her poetically rich, passionate, and intimate songs, which earned her the title of "America's Best Songwriter" by Time magazine in 2002.

The Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts at Pepperdine University provides high-quality activities for over 50,000 people from over 800 zip codes annually through performances, rehearsals, museum exhibitions, and master classes. Located on Pepperdine's breathtaking Malibu campus overlooking the Pacific, the center serves as a hub for the arts, uniquely linking professional guest artists with Pepperdine students as well as patrons from surrounding Southern California communities. Facilities include the 450-seat Smothers Theatre, the 118-seat Raitt Recital Hall, the "black box" Helen E. Lindhurst Theatre, and the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art.

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