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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Up-and-Coming Jazz Award
Winner Will Dazzle Long’s Park with “Fearsome Musicianship”
June 20, 2010.
LANCASTER, PA -- Better batten down the lawn chairs; Esperanza
Spalding is coming to Long’s Park Sunday, June 20,
2010. The remarkable jazz singer-double bassist was just named one
of the “10 Women on the Rise” in the May issue of Oprah
Winfrey’s O Magazine. Her free performance in the 2010
Long’s Park Summer Music Series will begin at 7:30 pm.
The Strad promises Spalding will infuse every inch of the
park with “a breath of fresh air” and “fearsome musicianship.”
Acclaimed for “injecting new life into string jazz” by
The Strad in a front cover story, Esperanza Spalding
“sings, writes and plays bass so brilliantly that ... Berklee
begged her to join the staff” (London Evening Standard).
“It’s impossible not to warm to someone who dances while
playing the double-bass,” they confessed. PopMatters
proclaimed her “a sprawling collage of jazz fusion, Brazilian
and even a tour of hip-hop.”
Observed The Arts Desk, “What she’s actually doing
is carving out bone-shakingly funky bass lines, singing some of
the most circuitous melodic lines you’re likely to hear, and
quietly grooving along to the music.”
Esperanza Spalding grew up in a tough neighborhood in Portland,
Oregon. Raised and encouraged by her mother, a touring singer herself,
she credits classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma for leading her to
music. After seeing him perform on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
when she was just four, she taught herself to play the violin and
was soon performing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon. It
wasn’t until she was in high school that she discovered the
bass.
Vocal music was also a part of her life. Being of African-American,
Native American, Welsh and Hispanic descent, she sang in English,
Spanish and Portuguese. She began writing her own lyrics for a local
indie rock/pop band when she was in her mid-teens. At 15, she got
her first gig in a blues club, knowing only one line on bass.
The road has not been easy for Esperanza Spalding.
She left high school when she was 16 but earned her GED. She soon
enrolled on a music scholarship in the music program at Portland
State University. Although she lacked the formal training of her
peers, all of them older than her, her teachers saw her innate talent.
At the prodding of one of these teachers, she applied to Berklee
College of Music and was awarded a full scholarship to attend.
In her first semester at Berklee, Spalding was already touring internationally
with Grammy-winning, R&B and jazz singer, Patti Austin. By the
age of 21 she was one of the youngest professors at Berklee when
she joined their staff after graduation in 2005.
Now living in New Jersey, Esperanza Spalding has already
released two albums. Plus, she has worked with some of the greatest
names in jazz, including pianist Michel Camilo, guitarist
Pat Metheny and saxophonist Joe Lovano. Last year
the Jazz Journalists Association tapped her for their Up-and-Coming
Artist of the Year. That was the same year she was invited to perform
in Oslo, Norway in honor of 2009 Nobel Laureate President Barack
Obama. She was also the featured final act at the 2009 Park City
Jazz Festival.
Her appearance this February on PBS television’s Austin
City Limits had Google working overtime the next day as she
was their most searched person.
The 48th annual Long’s Park Summer Music Series is produced
and underwritten by the Long’s Park Amphitheater Foundation.
The 13 weeks of award-winning, live performances are presented free
of charge at Long’s Park, thanks to generous
sponsors, private donors and proceeds of the Labor Day weekend Long’s
Park Art & Craft Festival. Season sponsors are Pennsylvania
College of Art & Design and Susquehanna Bank. Season media sponsors
are WARM 103 and 96.1 WSOX. Weather sponsor is WGAL-TV News 8. Building
sponsor is Wickersham Construction and Engineering, Inc.
Partial funding has been provided through a grant from the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts (PCA), a state agency funded by an annual state
appropriation and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal
agency. PCA supplies funding to nonprofit, tax-exempt corporations,
a unit of government or a school district with arts programming
or services in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Long’s Park concertgoers are invited to bring picnics, blankets
and lawn chairs to the park. A selection of food purveyors will
also be in the park, offering a complete meal’s worth of family
foods and desserts. Long’s Park is an alcohol-free park.
Long’s Park is conveniently located at 1441 Harrisburg Pike
in Lancaster, just off Route 30 across from Park City Center. All
events are free of charge and held rain or shine, except in the
case of dangerously inclement weather.
Additional information and links to musical previews of Long’s
Park’s performers can be found at www.longspark.org
or on Facebook. For details on corporate sponsorships of the Long’s
Park Summer Music Series and to learn how to make individual and
corporate contributions, contact the Long’s Park Amphitheater
Foundation at www.longspark.org.
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