The versatile Alison Brown and her band
are back at the Diana Wortham Theatre for a night of beautifully imagined
bluegrass, jazz and other genre-crossing tunes on Friday, November 6, 2015, at
8:00 p.m., with old favorites along with selections from Brown’s just-released
(October 9, 2015) album, The Song of the Banjo.
Formed in 1993 by the Nashville-based
Compass Records founders Alison Brown and Gary West, the band transforms
straight bluegrass beats into complex mixtures of jazz, Irish-style melodies,
and more.
Alison Brown has received three Grammy
nominations for her solo recordings and one Grammy award in 2001 for “Best
Country Instrumental Performance.” Her music has also garnered the
International Bluegrass Music Association’s award for “Banjo Player of the
Year” (1991). This year, Brown was awarded the IBMA Distinguished Achievement
Award, and in 2014, she was granted the United States Artist Fellowship.
Described by Pulse
magazine
as a “genre-bending banjoist,” Brown and her band manage to incorporate world
styles as well as traditional plucking in their music, the result being highly
original tunes and creative adaptations of the classics. On this latest album,
Brown and her stellar band have mixed seven originals with six surprising
covers of pop and rock classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, including “Dance With
Me” and “Time After Time.” The band’s line-up on this tour features the talents
of Brown on banjo and guitar, Joe Davidian on the piano, Christian Sedelmyer on
the fiddle, Gary West on bass, and Bryon Larrance on drums.
At the age of sixteen, Alison Brown won
the Canadian National Banjo Championship, and then recorded an instrumental album
with fiddler Stuart Duncan. She later earned an AB degree from Harvard
University and an MBA in finance from UCLA, spending two years as an investment
banker before returning to music. After touring with Alison Krauss and Union
Station, and as bandleader for Michelle Shocked, she formed the Alison Brown
Quartet with her husband and Compass Records business partner, Gary West.
Alison Brown’s Asheville performance is made possible by
Performance Sponsors Dianne & David Worley, First Citizens Bank, and Ward
& Smith, P.A.; and by Mainstage Music Series Sponsors Joel & Deborah
Berkowitz, Henry LaBrun, and the Omni Grove Park Inn; with additional support
provided by Media Sponsors WNC magazine and WNCW 88.7FM.
The entrance for the Diana Wortham Theatre is marked by the location of
the theatre’s marquee between 12 and 14 Biltmore Avenue. Patrons enter the
theatre through the breezeway between Marble Slab Creamery and White Duck Taco,
and into a large interior courtyard with multiple glass doors to the theatre’s main
lobby and box office. The intimate theatre seats
just over 500 and boasts exceptional acoustics and sightlines, making it the
premier performance space in Western North Carolina. The Mainstage Series is
supported by a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, a state agency. The 2015/2016 Mainstage Season Sponsors are the Asheville
Scene, Blue Moon Water, Creative Energy, the North Carolina Arts Council, 67
Biltmore Downtown Eatery & Catering, and the Renaissance Asheville Hotel.
To obtain more information or to purchase tickets, call the theatre’s box
office at (828) 257-4530 or visit www.dwtheatre.com.
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