CJ Chenier, “The Crown Prince of Zydeco,” was born into an indigenous American culture with a distinctive language and music. The Creole son of Clifton Chenier, he started playing in his father’s band shortly before Clifton died. CJ delivers soulful vocals along with masterful accordion-driven Zydeco and blues. A Grammy-nominated musician and recording artist, CJ ...
Featured wines at this performance.Festival Orchestra and Chorus The season finale will feature Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major; Brahms’ orchestrally-accompanied choral work, Schicksalslied Op. 54; and Beethoven’s great choral Symphony No. 9 in D minor Op. 125, with soloists Shawnette Sulker, Betany Coffland, Christòpheren Nomura, and Alex Boyer. Ticket price includes pre-concert ...
As a soloist or collaborator, Daniel Lockert is equally versatile on the piano, organ and harpsichord. A native of San Diego, CA, he began formal piano studies at the age of five. Throughout high school, he exclusively studied the organ. After getting his Bachelor’s in Piano Performance and a minor in organ from Loma Linda ...
Featured wines at this performanceSweet Honey is a well-known Grammy Award-winning (and many times nominated) a cappella ensemble that expresses their history as African American women through song, dance, and sign language. Rooted in the hymns, gospel music, and spirituals, the troupe seeks to preserve and extend the traditions of African American vocal music while ...
Featured wines at this event Grammy-award winner Peter Rowan is a singer-songwriter who started his career as a Blue Grass Boy in 1964. By Bill Monroe's own admission, Peter sounded a lot like him and when the two harmonized, they were said to have reached "heavenly heights.” The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band is made up ...
Festival Orchestra with pianist Spencer Myer Featured wines at this performance.The concert will open with Mendelssohn’s evocative concert overture, The Hebrides; long-time crowd favorite Spencer Myer will bring his warm and intelligent interpretation of Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor Op. 54; and Brahms’ last symphony, No. 4 in E minor Op. 98 will wrap ...
Kayleen Asbo is a passionate scholar: a cultural historian, musician, writer and teacher who weaves myth, music, psychology, history and art with experiential learning. A faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for seventeen years, Kayleen also teaches regularly for the Osher Life Long Learning Institutes at UC Berkeley, Sonoma State University and ...
Featured wines at this performance. A musical force equipped with the soulful vocals of Janis and the guitar slinging skills of Stevie Ray, Carolyn Wonderland reaches into the depths of the Texas blues tradition with the wit of a poet. She hits the stage with unmatched presence, a true legend in her time. Carolyn Wonderland ...
Featured wines at this performanceHailing from rural Texas, Foster is a singer-songwriter of blues and folk music. Mixing a wide palette of American song forms, from gospel and blues to jazz, folk and soul, she is often compared to Bonnie Raitt. Drawing influence from legendary acts like Mavis Staples and Aretha Franklin, Foster has developed ...
Featured wines at this performance. With a reputation as one of the world’s best jazz and blues vocalists, Kim Nalley is back to join the big band musicians in a tribute to the incomparable Aretha Franklin. She has pipes to burn, a 3½ octave range that can go from operatic to gritty blues on a ...
Featured wines at this performanceGuest conductor Mary Chun. Stage director Ann Woodhead. Donizetti’s enduringly popular comic opera features a spunky and beautiful landowner, a poor but good-hearted country boy and a puffed up sergeant who vie with each other for her affections, and a quack doctor who specializes in love potions that may bring two ...
Lecture admission is included with your concert ticket. Ann Woodhead, Stage Director for this year’s opera, L’elisir d’amore, is an award-winning dancer, choreographer, actor, and director. This is her second production for the Mendocino Music Festival. Now a full-time Mendocino Coast resident, Ann lived in Sonoma County for 30 years, teaching at Sonoma State University ...
Brazil’s Badi Assad is lauded as one of the world’s most unique performance artists of this generation. She transcends traditional styles of her native Brazilian music with a mixture of pop, jazz and world/ethnic sounds from around the world. Combining an extraordinary guitar talent, unique mouth percussion and beautiful singing, Assad creates an exciting, fresh sound. Fellow Brazilian Diego Figueiredo, a virtuoso with an infectious, joyful feeling, is a fast-rising star among the world’s greatest jazz guitarists. His superb technique and imagination have made him one of the hottest international names as he unites a fusion of Brazilian music with jazz. Twice a winner at the Montreux Jazz Competition, Figueiredo is also a producer, arranger, orchestrator and multi-instrumentalist.
The award=winning and highly acclaimed band Le Vent du Nord is a leading force in Quebec’s progressive francophone folk movement. The group’s vast repertoire draws from both traditional sources and original compositions, while enhancing its hard-driving soulful music (rooted in the Celtic diaspora) with a broad range of global influences. Le Vent du Nord must melt ...
Featured wines at this performance With hands that effortlessly glide over the keys and a voice that will carry you to the moon, Sheléa’s musical mastery makes her one of the most exhilarating up and coming artists today. While donning multiple hats of vocalist, songwriter, pianist, arranger and producer, Sheléa evokes the sultry energy of ...
To open the classical festival, Maestro Allan Pollack will lead the orchestra in Respighi’s evocative tone poem, Pines of Rome; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, with its lyrical second movement; and Pictures at an Exhibition, the stunning suite Mussorgsky wrote in honor of a painter friend who died young.
Since forming in 1975, Grammy winners BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet have been making some of the most potent and popular Cajun music on the planet. Born out of the rich Acadian ancestry of its members, and created and driven by bandleader Doucet’s spellbinding fiddle playing and soulful vocals, BeauSoleil’s distinctive sound derives from the distilled ...
The season closes with the delightful Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Elgar’s fascinating Enigma Variations, and John Rutter’s Magnificat sung by massed chorus, with Amy Bouchard, mezzo soprano. Ticket price includes pre-concert lecture at 6:30 CHOOSE SEATS AND BUY
As a soloist or collaborator, Daniel Lockert is equally versatile on the piano, organ and harpsichord. A native of San Diego, CA, he began formal piano studies at the age of five. Throughout high school, he exclusively studied the organ. After getting his Bachelor’s in Piano Performance and a minor in organ from Loma Linda ...
A smash hit at last year’s festival, the Pine Leaf Boys have been described by the New York Times as “the best new, energetic, and fun Cajun band in a very long time.” Four-time Grammy-nominated and hailing from southwest Louisiana, they are known for their own inimitable brand of music, blending the sounds of Cajun, ...
Performing together since 1980 and consisting of two sets of brothers, Venice’s music is a reflection of growing up in the California beach town for which the group is named. With sounds at once familiar and fresh, their music is a winning hybrid of folk/rock/soul. Venice’s trademarks are their beautiful harmonies, personal lyrics, and high-energy ...
Festival Orchestra with pianist John Novacek Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major. Ticket price includes pre-concert lecture at 6:30 CHOOSE SEATS AND BUY
A freelance musician throughout northern California, Marcia Lotter received her undergraduate training from the University of Washington in Seattle and has studied with such noted teachers as Vilem Sokol, Andor Toth, and Leonard Austria. Marcia performs in chamber groups for concerts and special events and has played in back-up groups for singers such as Smokey ...
With a vibrant mix of vintage Americana sounds, this eight-piece group “would have sounded utterly at home within the hallowed confines of Preservation Hall in New Orleans' French Quarter,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Their sonic explorations exemplify everything shows should be: hot, spontaneous, engaging and, best of all, a pleasure to hear.” The ...
Kim Nalley Kenny Washington The red-hot Festival Big Band plays the perennially sold-out concert, this year with two vocalists to add to the high energy. Last year’s Big Band vocalist Kim Nalley returns again this year to set the woods, and the house, on fire. According to Down Beat, "Sultry voiced Nalley brings an irresistibly ...
