The Savannah Music Festival has commissioned cabaret favorite Andrea Marcovicci to create a concert tribute to the late Savannah native Johnny Mercer.
The seven-year-old Savannah Music Festival has established a reputation for interesting programming crossing diverse musical boundaries, but their just-announced 2009 program may be the event's most interesting and most diverse yet. With top artists in various genres of jazz, roots, blues, world music, and classical, the upcoming festival, set for March 19 to April 5, 2009, puts a feather in the historic city's cultural cap.
The event's more than 100 performances are programmed in themes, series and special events. Some of the highlights are as follows:
In roots categories, Long Time Travelin' is a celebration of American folk song traditions featuring Rayna Gellert of Uncle Earl, gospel bluegrasser Doyle Lawson and hosted by Americana singer-songwriter Jim Lauderback, while Roots & Twang is a concert serieis featuring Neko Case and Crooked Fingers, Punch Brothers with Chris Thile, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Lovell Sisters and more. Read more »
At the end of March (the 20th to be exact), the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia kicks off and runs until April 5th. Tune Up for the festival by listening to tracks from the headlining acts. Because of its eclectic nature, the Savannah Tune Up playlist features cuts from a range of artists--from Audra McDonald to the Blind Boys of Alabama to Jonathan Biss, Festival Preview's got them all. Classical artists on the playlist include: Beax Arts Trio, Jennifer Larmore, Yundi Li, and Jonathan Biss.
My recent search on YouTube for the Savannah Music Festival yielded some interesting results this afternoon. Apparently they hold a contest every year for local college students to create a 30-second commercial for the festival. With cash prizes for the first and second place winners and the opportunity for the first place winner to have his or her commercial shown on television in regular rotation, the annual contest seems to attract many entrants.
Each video entry is judged on five criteria: persuasiveness, originality, memorability of content and delivery, entertainment value, and motivational elements. Click here for a link to past winners of the TV ad contest.
Below are some of the videos I found online. They didn't place, but they're still creative and fun to watch: Read more »
A top festival for Festival Preview that features classical music is the Savannah Music Festival, held annually in Savannah GA. On this year's list of classical performers, audiences will see names such as Yundi Li, Jennifer Larmore, and the Beaux Arts Trio. Adding a special touch to the festival is the Sensations series, which features chamber music programs originally produced for a group of performers selected from around the world to be performed at the festival. These performances are unique in that the performers will perform the pieces together one time only. New musicians in this series include the Emerson String Quartet and pianist Wu Han.
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