DADID BROMBERG – FRIDAY, May 3 | 7:30 PM | TICKETS: $37.50-42.50
He has played with everyone, he has toured everywhere, and he can lead a raucous big band or hold an audience silent with a solo acoustic blues rendition. David Bromberg is a master’s master, a string wizard and multi-instrumentalist whose virtuosity led him to be a first-call, “hired gun” guitarist for many recording sessions. he has played with scores of famous musicians, including Bob Dylan, Jerry Jeff Walker, Link Wray,The Eagles, Ringo Starr, The Grateful Dead, Willie Nelson and Carly Simon, among others. Influenced by Pete Seeger and The Weavers and, through them, Reverend Gary Davis, he discovered Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters and The Chicago Blues. At the same time, he was listening to Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.
Over time, Bromberg’s range of material, based in the folk and blues idioms, grew to include bluegrass, jazz, ragtime, country and ethnic music. In 2011 Bromberg released a new album, “Use Me,” featuring collaborations with John hiatt, the late Levon Helm, Los Lobos, Tim O’Brien, Vince gill, widespread Panic, Dr. John, Keb’ Mo’ and Linda Ronstadt.
SIMONE DINNERSTEIN & TIFT MERRITT SATURDAY, May 4 | 7:30 PM | TICKETS: $29.50-37.50
Simone Dinnerstein, a Juilliard-trained classical pianist, and Tift Merritt, a singer-songwriter whose father taught her to play piano and guitar by ear, join forces for the first time in “Night,” a unique collaboration that explores the common terrain among classical, folk and rock music.
“Night” features new songs written especially for Dinnerstein and Merritt by Brad Mehldau (“I Shall Weep at Night”) and Patty Griffin (“Night”), as well as Merritt’s own songs (“Only in Songs,” “Still Not Home,” “Colors” and “Feel of the World”) and classical selections (an arrangement of Schubert’s “Night and Dreams” and Bach’s Prelude in B minor).
Dinnerstein, based in Brooklyn, NY, gained an international following after the remarkable success of her recording of Bach’s goldberg Variations, which was released in 2007 on Telarc. The recording ranked number one on the U.S. Billboard classical chart in its first week of sales and was named to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the New Yorker’s “Best of 2007” lists. Her next album, “The Berlin Concert,” also reached the top position on the Billboard classical chart. Now signed to Sony Classical, Dinnerstein released “Bach: A Strange Beauty” in January 2011. It has defied boundaries as one of the few classical albums to grace the Billboard Top 200.
