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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Grammy-winning Singer-Songwriter
and UN Goodwill Ambassador Returning to Long’s Park for Free
Performance June 27, 2010.
LANCASTER, PA -- “Africa’s premier diva” (Time
Magazine), Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Angélique
Kidjo will return to perform in the Long’s Park Summer
Music Series June 27, 2010. One of the world’s most electrifying
performers, she left her Long’s Park audience breathless in
2005 with her uplifting blend of West African music, tinged with
R&B, funk, jazz and Latin styles. Her free Sunday night performance
will begin at 7:30 pm.
Performance cosponsor for Angélique Kidjo’s
performance is Smithgall’s Pharmacy.
For more than three decades, Angélique Kidjo
has been amassing fans around the globe through her dynamic, uplifting
music and her social activism. Her recent performance at the opening
concert for the World Cup captured a five-star rating on YouTube.
The West African native grew up listening to James Brown, Otis
Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Stevie Wonder. She
was named the fourth laureate of the Antonio Carlos Jobim award
in 2007 for her influence in world music on the evolution of jazz
and cultural crossover.
Billboard Magazine called Kidjo “one of Africa’s
most internationally successful performers, blending music of her
native Benin with Western jazz, soul and rock.” Wrote The
Los Angeles Times, “[Kidjo’s] supercharged pipes have
never sounded better, her irresistible energy and joie de vivre
never more palpable...Kidjo reaffirms her global-diva credentials.”
But Bermuda’s Royal Gazette offers caution. “If
you ever plan on going to an Angélique Kidjo concert and
staying seated in your chair, think again. It’s not going to
happen.”
Since she was discovered in Paris in 1991, where she’d moved
to study at the prestigious CIM jazz school, Angélique
Kidjo has released 11 albums. Her latest, Õÿö,
mixing traditional music, classic 60s and 70s soul and songs of
her childhood idol, Miriam Makeba, was released in January.
Her internationally acclaimed repertoire includes collaborations
with Carlos Santana, Peter Gabriel, Alicia Keys, John Groban,
Branford Marsalis and more.
Angélique Kidjo was nominated for a Best Music
Video Grammy in 1995 and for Best World Music Albums in 1999, 2003,
2005 and 2007. She received a Grammy for Best World Contemporary
Album in 2008 for “Djin Djin.” In 2009, she was inducted
into the Afropop Hall of Fame.
In 1996 and 2002 she performed at Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies.
In 1998, she was a part of Sarah McLachlan’s landmark
Lilith Fair tour. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2008. Along
with Joan Baez, Michael Franti and Jackson Browne,
she performed at the Peace Ball celebrating President Barack Obama’s
inauguration in January 2009.
Angélique Kidjo became a United Nations Goodwill
ambassador in 2002. With UNICEF, she visited many African countries
and Haiti. In 2005, she campaigned for Oxfam at the World Trade
meeting for their fair trade advocacy. She founded The Batonga Foundation
in 2006, a nonprofit organization now working in five African countries
to assist young girls from poor families get secondary schooling.
In 2008, she performed with will.i.am and The Black Eyed
Peas in their “In My Name,” anti-poverty video. She
performed at the opening day of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit
in December. Since last year she has been campaigning for “Africa
for Women’s Rights” with The International Federation
of Human Rights.
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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