June 14th ZALON Program

Intro. Charlotte Blake Alston

Charlotte Blake Alston performs in venues throughout North America and abroad. Venues are wide and include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kimmel Center, the Women of the World Festival in Cape Town, South Africa, prisons, detention centers and a refugee camp in northern Senegal. She breathes life into traditional and contemporary stories from African and African American oral and cultural traditions. She brings her stories and songs to national and regional festivals, schools, universities, museums, libraries and performing arts centers throughout the United States and Canada. In 1991, Charlotte became the first storyteller to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra on both their Family and Student concert series. Since 1994, she has been the host of “Sound All Around”; the orchestra’s preschool concert series and continues to appear as a guest host and narrator on family concerts. For 6 seasons, Charlotte hosted “Carnegie Kids”, Carnegie Hall’s Preschool concert series and has been a featured artist on the Carnegie Hall Family Concert Series in NY since 1996. She has been a featured teller at The National Storytelling Festival, The National Festival of Black Storytelling, and at regional festivals throughout North America and abroad. She has been a featured narrator for several orchestras and conductors including The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Gloria Justen

Gloria Justen is a composer, violinist and violist who is known for her dynamic, emotionally-charged performances. Gloria has released two CDs of original compositions, and her music has been performed by soloists and chamber orchestras in the United States and Europe. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, she has performed and toured as a violinist with The Philadelphia Orchestra, The San Francisco Symphony, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and The Philip Glass Ensemble, and she has performed works by many contemporary composers as a soloist and as a member of ensembles. She has also been a recording session violinist for many pop music stars. Gloria enjoys collaborating with other musicians, modern dancers, storytellers, poets, and visual artists. She mixes the influences of classical, world, and experimental music using stringed instruments and electronics, and her current shows also feature the artwork of her husband Greg Habiby. Gloria also designs and creates wearable art as a secondary art form.

website: gloriajustenmusic.com (CDs and scores for sale, and contact me about commissions)

Donations are much appreciated! Venmo @Gloria-Justen, or PayPal to gloriajusten@gmail.com (please send “Friends and Family”)

Please subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuuhiLU6A1LzADZDjJfbCSw/

Find me on Facebook @gloriajustenmusic and @gloriajustenstudio

Bet Williams

A long-time favorite on the singer/songwriter, Americana music scene, Bet Williams left the U.S. over ten years ago to tour extensively in Europe. Now she’s back and living in New York City where she and her neighbors have been holding social distance sing-ins on their stoops and rooftops. With an astounding 4-octave-range, Bet creates huge soundscapes with her voice and acoustic guitar that reach beyond the boundaries of folk, blues, world music or rock. Full of raw emotion, “super human reserves of energy” (New York Daily News) and a startling honesty, she ventures places most singer/songwriters hesitate to go. “Bet Williams is a performer who is seething with life,” according to NPR. No wonder she has appeared on stages with artists such as Taj Mahal, Joan Osborne, Herbie Hancock, Arlo Guthrie and Lucinda Williams.

Links:

Bet Williams CDs are available at http://www.epiphanyrecords.com/ep-store
And visit http://www.betwilliams.com for videos and whatnot.

Feel free (good, amazing!) to support Bet Williams at Venmo: Bet-Williams  or  Paypal: betwilliams11@googlemail.com

Alex Shapiro

Alex Shapiro aligns note after note with the hope that at least a few of them will actually sound good next to each other. Her persistence at this activity, as well as non-fiction writing about the music business, public speaking, arts advocacy volunteerism, wildlife photography, and the shameless instigation of insufferable puns on social media, has led to a happy life. Drawing from a broad musical palette that giddily ignores genre, Alex’s acoustic and electroacoustic works for small chamber groups and large ensembles are published by Activist Music LLC, performed and broadcast daily, and can be found on over thirty commercial released albums from record labels and artists around the world. Shapiro’s music, photography and essays can be experienced on her website, www.alexshapiro.org.

Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexshapiro
Twitter: @alex_shapiro
YouTube channel:http://www.youtube.com/ComposerAlexShapiro

2020 released CD on Innova Recordings: ARCANA, the complete solo piano works of Alex Shapiro, performed by Adam Marks: https://www.innova.mu/albums/alex-shapiro/arcana

Luiz Simas

Rio-born Brazilian composer/singer/pianist Luiz Simas has been living in New York since ‘89. He has led original groups in festivals and clubs in the US, in Europe and in Brazil. Luiz’s voice and music have graced major venues including Birdland Jazz club, the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Room and the Iridium in New York, the Gamle Logen Hall in Oslo, the Pheasantry in London, the Phillarmonia Hall in Odessa and Sala Cecilia Meirelles in Rio.His repertoire includes his own infectious original tunes and improvisations, as well as his own brilliant arrangements of beloved music standards by major Brazilian composers.

Website: www.luizsimas.com

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVU4HOd97Szb3KKCto-cy5w

Facebook: www.facebook.com/luizpaulosimas

Donations: paypal.me/luizsimas

Mary Bichner

Mary Bichner is an award-winning classical-meets-pop composer with the bizarre music superpowers of perfect pitch and synesthesia. Called a “musical genius” by CBS News, and invited to Harvard University’s prestigious neuroscience lab to be studied for her brain’s unusual wiring, Mary creates richly-colored compositions that delight classical enthusiasts and indie-pop rockers alike. Mary is currently composing an opera inspired by the life of Marie Antoinette. Excerpts from the opera received their piano/vocal premiere during a sold-out preview concert at Central Square Theater of Cambridge, MA in 2018 as part of The Nora Theater Company’s emerging artists workshop series. A full-length semi-staged reading will follow in 2020-2021. More info can be found here: https://www.marybichner.com/memoirsofantonina/  She is thrilled to return to the Salon!

Website: www.marybichner.com

Instragram: www.instagram.com/marybichner

Facebook: www.facebook.com/marybichnercomposer

Donate: https://www.oprahmag.com/life/a32714899/how-to-help-george-floyd/

Lydia Bain

Lydia Bain is a multi-faceted performing and recording artist with a wide array of musical lineages, some going back to Billie Holiday and Nathan Milstein. Bain has been at the forefront of the Healing Entertainment Industry and is currently on the “Time Machine World Tour”. It has been a vehicle in connecting with important musical figures that have pioneered the way for American Music and beyond. With a fascination for Artifacts, she has been involved in creating instruments made of carbon fiber while studying the History of Violin, and other ancient stringed instruments. Her passion as a violinist visionary, takes her into the study of frequency and the nature of the voice. In addition to being a vocalist, Ms. Bain continues her studies on other instruments. She has incorporated unique, interdisciplinary methods through teaching. Her passion for musical movement led her to utilize the Hula-hoop in violin pedagogy at Duquesne University. Bain studied with many gifted teachers at the Rudi Scheidt School of Music (University of Memphis). Her current project, Worldpop4life is in a wonderful stage of research and development with the goal of creating an immersive experience.

Venmo: @Lydia-Bain-2

Paypal: PayPal.Me/world-pop

CashApp: @$lydstir12

worldpop4life.com

worldpop4life@gmail.com

Facebook: @Lydiabainmusic

Instagram: @national_attraction

Peter Rose

Peter Rose works with film, video, sound, and performance to investigate the shifting boundaries of space, time, perception, and thought.  A former Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in Film and Video, and the recipient of five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rose has presented his work extensively both here and abroad and has gained considerable critical acclaim. Exhibitions of his films include shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial, the Centre Pompidou, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Film Society at Lincoln Center, and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. He recently retired from teaching after almost 50 years, having headed the film/video program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Websites:

www.peterrosepicture.com

https://vimeo.com/search?q=esorp

https://www.youtube.com/user/esorp

Email:

esorp@aol.com

Gloria Galante

Harpist Gloria Galante has performed worldwide in the genres of jazz, classical, Latin, African and pop. She is a recipient of the 2019 Jazz Legacy Award. Gloria is principal harpist with the Moog-endorsed Divine Hand Ensemble. She has also performed with renowned artists including Cecil Bridgewater, Jose Feliciano, Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra and Luther Vandross and Philly jazz notables Warren Oree and Odean Pope. Gloria and Odean were paired together as a musical duo in 1998 by Alice Coltrane. Their CD entitled “Pope – Galante” has received much airplay and recognition, and they performed a concert celebrating John Coltrane’s birthday. Gloria is the founder and director of the Wells School of Music Harp program at West Chester University. Gloria also directs the West Chester University Harp Ensemble and Community Harp Ensemble, is a Musicopia ensemble leader, and serves as a teaching artist on the prestigious Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. Gloria is also committed to using the harp in healing. She is a certified music practitioner (CMP) and an advisor for the Music for Healing and Transition program. She made history as the first CMP to provide therapeutic music to in vitro fertilization patients to reduce anxiety during transfers at Abington Hospital.

For more information visit www.gloriagalante.com.

Donations graciously appreciated for JazzBridge.org

PayPal