Joshua Jenkins - Millennium Stage (August 31, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Featuring the music of composers both from Africa and the diaspora, this show highlights the dynamism and originality present within this tradition. As the music that not only forms the foundation of modern jazz, but continues to inform its trajectory, African and Afro-diasporic music will take center stage in this program. Listen as Joshua Jenkins and his ensemble perform works by Lionel Loueke (Benin), Joshua Uzoigwe (Nigeria), Sakésho (French Caribbean), and others, in order to honor the beautiful wellspring of expression that is African music.
Personnel:
Joshua Jenkins - piano
Eliot Seppa - bass
Angel Bethea - drums
Domenic Lewis - steelpan
DC Jazz Festival: Ebban & Ephraim Dorsey - Millennium Stage (August 29, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Ebban and Ephraim Dorsey are 20- and 21-year-old saxophonists, composers, bandleaders, and rising stars in the contemporary jazz scene. The multi-talented siblings have been playing together since they were nine and 10. Both have been members of Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz, Herbie Hancock Institute’s National Peer-to-Peer All-Star Jazz, JAZZ HOUSE KiDS, and Peabody Jazz Ensembles between 2020–2024.
Ebban Dorsey’s improvisational prowess is also featured extensively on José James’ album On & On, a jazz tribute to Erykah Badu, which resulted in Ebban Dorsey being invited on her first international tour in 2023. Ephraim Dorsey was also cast to play a young Kamasi Washington in his short film As told to G/D thyself, which was nominated for awards at the Sundance and La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festivals.
Destined for greatness, the Dorseys continue to blaze a trail forward with their trademark humility, melodic invention, and forward-thinking musical concepts. Their performances can be described as two different voices coming together to create a healing, ethereal, and emotional experience for listeners as well as themselves.
In collaboration with DC Jazz Festival
DC Jazz Festival: Eliot Seppa - Millennium Stage (August 28, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Eliot Seppa is well known as one the most sought-after bassists in the D.C. area in jazz, R&B, gospel, musical theater, and more. Through years of experience in so many diverse musical situations, he has developed a band sound that is eclectic and uniquely his own. In his compositions and arrangements, Eliot embraces rich harmonies, infectious rhythms, and organic interplay between band members.
In collaboration with DC Jazz Festival
Don't Be Deceived video
Don't be fooled! Our website, kennedy-center.org, is the *only* place to buy tickets for our performances and events — like &Juliet and Broadway Center Stage: Schmigadoon! on sale Sep. 10 at 10 a.m. 🎫🎭✨
Click the #LinkInBio for more information about these exciting new musicals, and mark your calendar to be first in line for tickets.📆
Life of Pi Montage
On sale now! Based on the novel, movie, and worldwide phenomenon, Life of Pi is an epic story of perseverance that "gives new life to Broadway" (The Today Show). 🐅🦓🦧
Click the #LinkInBio and grab tickets now to this exhilarating show featuring jaw-dropping visuals, world-class puppetry, and exquisite stagecraft Dec. 17–Jan. 5 in the Eisenhower Theater.⭐
Michael Tarbox
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: “At the heart of Tarbox’s music is his guitar, as raw as it is charismatic. It creates an electricity that courses through every song.”
—Twangville
Michael Tarbox writes songs anchored in rock ‘n’ roll, backwater blues, and hillbilly music. They’re rough-hewn and immediate, and they convey a sense of hard-won perspective. The Chicago Reader calls Tarbox’s singing “ageless.” His gospel-tinged electric guitar playing, tough as Texas barbed wire, brings it all together.
Tarbox grew up in a mill town just west of Boston. He credits a cool babysitter with introducing him to the music that led him to become a musician. “She was the older sister I never had,” says Tarbox, “She and her art-room friends would come over to my folks’ house and play these incredible rock ‘n’ roll records. They were also listening to Leadbelly and Robert Johnson. It was a window into another world, and it changed everything for me.”
Tarbox began his career with The Tarbox Ramblers, a hard-hitting quartet that released well-received albums on Rounder and played countless shows throughout the U.S. and Canada. The group featured both Tarbox’s own songs and his unusual arrangements of old blues and string-band music. The Washington Post called The Tarbox Ramblers “a force of nature.” Robert Plant saw the band play and recruited them, on the spot, to open a string of concert dates.
“My inspirations are musicians from a world that’s vanished. I let them guide me, but my goal is to create something new,” says Tarbox. “At the risk of sounding cliché, music saved my life. It kept me going when I was a kid and it looked like drugs and booze might tear my family apart. More than a few times, it provided an island of sanity when chaos seemed like the only alternative. I met my wife and most of my good friends playing music. I can’t imagine where I’d be today if I hadn’t picked up a guitar when I was fourteen.”
The State & Future of Theater Criticism (August 23, 2024)
In a live moderated conversation, Social Impact Senior Director Victoria Murray Baatin will host a discussion with the Peter Marks (former Washington Post theater critic) and Naveen Kumar (the newly appointed Washington Post theater critic).
The event will explore the current landscape and the future direction of theater criticism on a national scale, as well as the specific dynamics within the Washington, D.C. theater community. This conversation aims to shed light on the evolving role of theater critics in shaping public opinion and supporting the arts. The discussion will delve into the challenges and opportunities facing theater critics today, examining how their work impacts both the industry and its audiences. With insights from Peter Marks, the dialogue promises to provide a comprehensive look at the critical discourse surrounding theater and its development in the nation’s capital.
Can't make it in person? Catch the live stream of this special panel conversation on the Kennedy Center's web page, YouTube, and Facebook!
Gina Chavez - Millennium Stage (August 23, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: QUEER. LATINX. TEXAN.
Gina Chavez is a wife, philanthropist, and an award-winning independent musician. She is a 2020 Latin Grammy® nominee for Best Pop/Rock Album, and a 12-time Austin Music Award winner, including 2019 Best Female Vocals and 2015 Austin Musician of the Year. Her NPR Tiny Desk concert has more than 1.3 million views, and her hour-long PBS special is available nationwide.
Gina’s music is deeply personal. Her passionate collection of bilingual songs takes audiences on a journey to discover her Latin roots through music as she shares her story of life in Texas as a married, queer Catholic.
Gina tours internationally as a cultural ambassador with the U.S. State Department and runs Niñas Arriba, a college fund she co-founded with her wife for young women in the gang-dominated El Salvador. She is featured alongside Oprah, Beyonce, Mahalia Jackson, Dolly Parton, and many more in Southern Living’s new book celebrating “100 extraordinary women who have left their indelible mark on the South and beyond.”
Ronnie Burrage & Holographic Principle - Millennium Stage (August 22, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Holographic Principle is an exceptional all-star band of inventive musicians put together by drummer and composer Ronnie Burrage.
Burrage grew up in St. Louis and moved to New York in the late 1970s. He became a founding member of Defunkt, a downtown band fusing improvisation with free jazz, funk, and rock. Burrage left Defunkt to join McCoy Tyner’s band when he was 20s. In the same period, he founded The Burrage Ensemble whose members were Kenny Kirkland, Marcus Miller, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, his uncle Rasul Siddik, Joe Ford, Avery Sharpe, and Wallace Roney. Since then, Burrage has been part of a myriad of projects. He served as a drummer in groups led by Sonny Fortune, Jackie McLean Woody Shaw, Sir Roland Hanna, Sonny Rollins, Pat Metheny, Chico Freeman, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker, Stanley Cowell, Archie Shepp Bobby Hutcherson, Hamiet Bluiett and others. He has been a leader of his own ensembles up to the present day.
Holographic Principle’s music is steeped in tradition and reflects the spirit of Miles Davis and Weather Report, creating new sounds within music. Burrage’s band members have achieved strong recognition on the international jazz scene and shared the stage with a diversity of artists going from Henry Threadgill to Dizzy Gillespie, Victor Bailey, and Joel Ross. Together with Burrage they celebrate the many styles and eras that have shaped their musical vocabulary and inspired their boundlessly creative output.
Holographic Principle features compositions from different band members and traverses aspects of jazz, funk, soul, fusion, straight-ahead, and world music. Their record Dance of the Great Spirit was Grammy®-nominated for 2020 Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Don’t miss this amazing musical journey in the best tradition of Black culture.
Burdah Ensemble - Millennium Stage (August 21, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Presented in collaboration with the Reed Society.
This Sufi inspired vocal group, founded in 2009 in Montreal, is led by Qari Sidi Anwar Barrada from Morocco. He is accompanied by traditional instruments that make up a takht, the classical music ensemble of Middle Eastern music —such as the qanun (zither), oud (lute), ney (reed flute), kaman (violin), and riq (drums).
Local Theatre Festival 2024 Promo Vid
Join us at the REACH on Aug. 23 & 24 for the Second Annual Local Theatre Festival! 🎭
This free festival brings theater companies and playwrights from across the DMV for a weekend celebrating our vibrant community. Enjoy:
🔴Exclusive works-in-progress readings of theatrical works
🔵Insightful workshops and panels led by industry professionals
🟢A curated resource session for DMV theater fans and professionals
Click the #LinkInBio for more information.
Glen David Andrews - Millennium Stage (August 17, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Glen David Andrews, a native son and a beloved musician of New Orleans, is a warrior for cultural preservation at a time when indigenous traditions are being threatened in the city.
His commanding voice and fierce trombone sound are a powerful, emotional, and resonant blend of smoothness and grit. Along with his disarmingly honest manner, his voice and sound provide a musical experience that never fails to meet the moment.
Glen’s music is packed with beauty, hard-earned truths, compassion, humor, anger, joy, and, most of all, hope.
Dom Flemons - Millennium Stage (August 16, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: As a resolute preservationist, storyteller, and instrumentalist, Dom Flemons has long set himself apart by finding forgotten folk songs and making them live again. His work has been recognized with a Grammy Award®, two Emmy® nominations, and 2020 U.S. Artists Fellowship. Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Chicago area with his family. He has branded the moniker The American Songster® since his repertoire of music covers over 100 years of early American popular music. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor, slam poet, music scholar, historian, and record collector. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife, and rhythm bones. Flemons is the host of the American Songster Radio show on Nashville’s WSM Radio. In 2022, he was awarded a degree as a Doctor of Humane Letters from his alma mater Northern Arizona University.
Available now, Traveling Wildfire is his first new album since 2018’s Black Cowboys and his second release for Smithsonian Folkways. He turns to an important, overlooked voice that he’s proudly rediscovered: his own. Asked what he hopes his audience will hear in Traveling Wildfire, Flemons replies, “I hope people will be able to hear the different phases of my life through the lyrics and feel the energy that fuels my creativity within the songs. The past few years for me have been a time of deep reflection and meditation. I hope that the album will light a fire of inspiration inside everyone who experiences it.”
Martin Sexton - Millennium Stage (August 15, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: “The real thing, people.”
—Billboard
Martin Sexton returns with what Rolling Stone calls his “soul-marinated voice,” acoustic guitar, and a suitcase full of heartfelt songs. The tour takes Martin across North America in support of his latest EP 2020 Vision—produced by three-time Grammy® nominee John Alagia (Lukas Nelson, John Mayer, Dave Matthews)—and he reinvents his own classics for these critically-acclaimed solo performances. Still fiercely independent and headlining venues from The Fillmore to Carnegie Hall, Sexton has influenced a generation of contemporary artists. His songs have appeared in television series such as Scrubs, Parenthood, Masters of Sex, Sprung, and in numerous films. However, it’s his incendiary live shows, honest lyrics, and vocal prowess that keep fans coming back for a new experience every time.
The Sensational Barnes Brothers - Millennium Stage (August 14, 2024)
Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: The Sensational Barnes Brothers are a musical blend of old and new, a real gem in the gospel/soul scene. As PopMatters states, “The brothers run through a spectrum of moods and modes in their gospel soul, often bridging the gap between, say, the Soul Stirrers and Stax, all the while keeping a local flavor.” The brothers can dive deep into their roots, creating a sound that reflects the music of their history, all the while drawing in a modern-day audience.
The Sensational Barnes Brothers are featured on vocalist Don Bryant’s Grammy®-nominated album Don’t Give Up on Love, and you can also hear them on several tracks from the album XOPA by Latin Grammy®–nominated Making Movies. The band has also recorded with the lead singer of The Black Keys, Dan Auerbach.
These talented brothers made their mark with their first album—Nobody’s Fault But My Own—under Bible and Tire Recording Co. Fat Possum. Inspired by their shared past, fueled by harmonies that resonate with both their blood and their kindred souls, The Sensational Barnes Brothers are here to stay, singing, playing, and dancing for a long, long time. Their new album of all originals will be released in fall 2024.
Cindy Campbell and DJ Kool Herc
This week in 1973, hip hop was born. And we have Cindy Campbell and DJ Kool Herc to thank.
Hip hop's influence on American culture is immense and powerful, stretching across the worlds of business, education, entertainment, fashion, politics, technology, and more. As we mark the end of its 50th year, we hope to salute the genre in its many forms and places, from an apartment party in the Bronx to the Kennedy Center stage.
Learn more about the history of hip hop at the #LinkInBio.
Chief Adjuah performed songs new and old with a band full of young talents on Sunday, Aug. 4, bringing the Terrace Theater to its feet more than once.🔥🎶
And yes, those are instruments Adjuah himself designed and developed. The Siren, Sirenette, Adjuah Trumpet/Reverse Flugelhorn, and the Adjuah Bow are signatures to an already signature artist and progenitor of “stretch music.”⭐
Kevin Hart Acceptance Speech | 2024 Mark Twain Prize
"F**k you both. That's right! Now back to the real sh*t..." –Kevin Hart (to Nick Cannon & JB Smoove) accepting the #MarkTwainPrize in March 2024
Watch the full celebration and acceptance speech on Netflix. 📺
Back to the Future: The Musical (Jul. 23–Aug. 11) // The DeLorean in D.C.
Great Scott–talk about a blast from the past! 😱💥
The DeLorean hit the D.C. streets this week with Back to the Future Broadway cast member Zan Berube (Lorraine Baines) to stop by the top sights in town.
If our calculations are correct, "Back to the Future" is in D.C. through August 11. So, buckle up, synchronize your watches, and get tickets for this classic turned musical today! ⚡🎶📅🚀👨🔬 ➡️ https://bit.ly/46OcBxv
🚗 Philly Time Machine Rentals