Media Contact: Micki Leventhal, 312-369-7383
CHICAGO, IL - A tribute concert to Ray Charles will feature the talents of current and legendary musicians and vocalists as they perform Charles’s greatest hits and historically significant music. The concert is the centerpiece event of Genius Without Borders: A Symposium in Honor of the Genius of Ray Charles, presented by Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Black Music Research (CBMR).
The concert will take place at 7:30pm on Saturday, March 7, in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium of the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State St.. Ticket prices are $45 ($25 for seniors and students). Call 312-369-6600 for reservations.
Members of the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble, conducted by T.S. Galloway, will be joined by former members of Ray Charles’s ensemble including vocals by Dr. Mable John, one of the Raylettes; Marcus Belgrave on trumpet; Chuck Parrish on trumpet; and John Bryant on drums. Featured vocal soloists with the NBMRE are Bobbi Wilsyn, Sue Conway and Maggie Brown. Also performing is the Columbia College Chicago Gospel Choir. Tony Gumina, president of the Ray Charles Marketing Group will serve as the evening’s host. In addition to the live performances, there will be a screening of rare video footage of historic Ray Charles concerts.
The tribute concert is presented as part of CBMR’s symposium on the Genius of Ray Charles, March 7-8. The symposium features paper sessions, lecture demonstrations and panel discussions examining the influence of Charles’s work on music and culture. Full registration is available to scholars, students and the general public. For full details:
www.colum.edu/cbmr/raycharles2009/index.php.
Genius Without Borders: A Symposium in Honor of the Genius of Ray Charles is made possible in part by the generosity of Mesirow Financial, The Palmer House Hilton Hotel and U.S. Cellular.
The Center for Black Music Research, founded in 1983 by Samuel A. Floyd Jr., is a one-of-a-kind resource known to ethnomusicologists, scholars and researchers world wide. The center documents, collects, preserves, and disseminates information about black music in all parts of the world and promotes understanding of the common roots of the music, musicians, and composers of the global African Diaspora. The center’s Library and Archives, which was established in 1990 and opened to the public in 1992, currently holds more than 2,900 cataloged books and dissertations, 11,000 sound recordings in various formats, as well as 3,300 scores and pieces of sheet music. Through its exploration of the life and work of a significant and influential African-American composer and musician, the Ray Charles Symposium will reflect the CBMR mission and have scholarly impact not only in the Columbia College and Chicago community but nationally.
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