Palmer Woods Music in Homes

08/14/2024

This is my beloved husband A. Spencer Barefield in June trying to uplift our spirits in the hospital (actually throughout most of this year) as he has struggled with a serious health issue that for months his doctors were 95-99% sure was very rare cancer that would require a liver transplant. He is miraculously in that tiny percentage that is not cancer, but he still has a long healing journey ahead. BUT, he is starting to perform again (photo from the July for The Kresge Foundation Eminent Artists and Fellows celebration). AND, this Saturday he will make a rare appearance at a very cool party at a historic Palmer Woods mansion to benefit People For Palmer Park . It will be catered by the awesome Chef Phil Jones of the The Black Food Project. Tickets at logcabinparty2024.eventbrite.com

07/26/2024

The Freedom Arts Festival/Music of the Middle East @ Palmer Park with Victor Ghannam & Friends will feature amazing free music, art and food with a Middle East flair. Also, we are so honored to have Elton Monroy Duran at the event to lead a free arts workshop. He is the amazing artist who designed the Freedom Arts Festival poster and some of Detroit’s most iconic and exciting murals.

We are still open to include more artists! Sell and exhibit your work for free, but you must apply here asap because People For Palmer Park will be choosing artists in a few days. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScU8vynhVqBqvCsQUBr01Qm32oG92hpzhZDe7mMzpHx2YjHPg/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0

07/21/2024

I will be at the Eastern Market shed 5 with my friend Peter Werbe selling my photo history book JazzSpace Detroit (with narratives by Herb Boyd and Larry Gabriel) on Sunday July 21. Please come buy a book! Then meet me at the EarthTones Concert at Palmer Park Log Cabin for a free concert at 4 with Ian Finkelstein and @ Marcus Elliot!

06/01/2024

TONIGHT at the Kennedy Center, my son-in-law John-Paul Norpoth will be performing on this extraordinary concert!
https://www.youtube.com/live/K4uBuNajpfE?si=fgRW_sez5-xno5d2

Watch a FREE livestream of The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout. Join Nona Hendryx, Abby Dobson, Toshi Reagon, Joel Thompson, Carlos Simon, Courtney Bryan, Troy Anthony and more as they take you on a sonic melodic quest to “The Gathering.” Taking place in the Opera House at The Kennedy Center, “The Gathering” will center the soul of Black folks and the heart of America's brilliant and bitter present.

With Creative Concept and Direction by NBT’s Executive Artistic Director, Jonathan McCrory, and featuring 80 members of the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Chelsea Tipton, II and 48 members of the NEWorks Voices of Inspiration chorale under the leadership of choirmaster Nolan Williams, Jr, this night will feature the DC premiere of Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson alongside Carlos Simon’s Amen! and Courtney Bryan’s Sanctum. In conjunction with these pieces, the night has been curated in the African tradition of call and response to include original works by genre-defying Black artists such as Abby Dobson, Toshi Reagon, Troy Anthony, and Nona Hendryx.

The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout was originally performed to a sold-out audience at The Apollo in Harlem, New York 2022.

This performance is co-produced by National Black Theatre and The Apollo in association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is an external rental presented in coordination with the Kennedy Center Campus Rental Office

01/07/2023

The Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation's Weekly Jam Session with an All-Star Detroit House Band and Special Guests from throughout the Detroit Jazz Scene -- Yo...

08/18/2022

08/12/2022

This is why Palmer Woods Music in Homes is fabulous! Fifteen years of presenting some of Detroit's most talented and celebrated musicians! Photos in video by Barbara Barefield Full film on Detroit jazz at https://www.barbarabarefield.com/jazzspace-detroit-film

09/27/2021

Congratulations to David Alan Grier (one of our past Music in Homes stars!).

David captured the first award announced on Sunday night, earning his first-ever Tony trophy for his performance in "A Soldier’s Play."

He was named best featured actor in a play for his emotive turn as a sergeant in "A Soldier’s Play," riveting Pulitzer Prize-winning tale by Charles Fuller about a platoon of Black soldiers at a World War II-era military base.

We are so proud of this Detroit-born, super gifted artist!

08/31/2021

Kisma Jordan-Hunter was spectacular at our Music in Homes concerts several years ago. We loved her! If you missed it, you can hear her in a few days at the DSO.

Get your tickets! www.dso.org

12/12/2017

Time to get your tickets to our pre-New Year's Eve concert on SATURDAY, DEC 10 with the great jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins, her producer-pianist Kamau Kenyatta (Grammy award winner for Gregory Porter's newest recording), guitarist A. Spencer Barefield, bassist Dave Young (Oscar Peterson's bassist for many decades) and drummer Djallo Djakate Keita. VIP tickets are sold out, but there are still a few general admission tickets.

Pre-New Years Eve Celebration with a jazz quartet featuring vocalist Kathy Kosins, pianist Kamau Kenyatta, guitarist A. Spencer Barefield, bassist Dave Young and drummer Djallo Keita. Click photo f…

08/12/2017

Great Jazz with Spencer Barefield Quartet @ Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe, Wed-Sat Aug 16-19 http://p0.vresp.com/gTzGIt

Kresge Arts Foundation Fellow A. Spencer Barefield is "... an extraordinary guitarist / composer, whose striking use of classical sympathetic and 12-string instruments owes as great a debt to Segovia as it does to any jazz antecedent … He melds the techniques of Segovia and Jimi Hendrix into a start...

07/12/2017

Friends: ( You may know me — Barbara Barefield — as the lady with the camera at all the Music in Homes concerts) I have been accepted to exhibit my artwork at ArtPrize, an international art competition in Grand Rapids, that is the most attended public art event in the world! Since printing photos to cover a 30 x 10 ft. wall at the Grand Rapids African American Museum is not cheap, I really need your help!

THE RACE FOR $1000! If I am one of the first ten artists to raise $1000 with at least ten donors, the money gets matched through the ArtPrize! Any amount will help, but donations $25 and up will receive photos from my collection. Time is critical to win the matching funds!

Friends, please help. I have been accepted to exhibit my artwork at ArtPrize, an international art competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that is the most attended public art event in the world! Since printing photos to cover a 30 x 10 foot wall is not cheap, I really need your help! If I am o...