Madeleine Peyroux’s extraordinary journey is one of the music industry’s most compelling. Eight albums and 22 years since her debut Dreamland, Peyroux continues to challenge the confines of jazz, venturing into the fertile fields of contemporary music with unfading curiosity.

Please note: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra does not appear on this program.

Known to millions as “The Royal Family of the Guitar,” the Romeros (Celin, Pepe, Lito & Celino) in one form or another have been performing, dazzling audiences and winning rave reviews for more than 60 years. If you love classical guitar, chances are you have the prolific and peripatetic Romeros to thank for its popularity. So many guitar virtuosi in one family is unique in the world of musical performance.

Please note: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra does not appear on this program.

With a repertoire running the gamut from swing to bebop to the Great American Songbook, Veronica Swift is a young but fully fledged star on the international jazz scene. Boasting a clear and lilting tone and radiant stage presence, she is also a master of rigorous vocal techniques like vocalese and scat. In the Wall Street Journal’s words: “[Swift] might be the best scat singer since Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Tormé.”

Having first gained widespread attention in high-profile collaborations with the likes of Wynton Marsalis and Chris Botti, she has developed a devoted following among audiences. On stage, Veronica will be performing selections from her 2021 album, This Bitter Earth, along with additional jazz standards, rock classics, and more.   

As Swift remarked recently, “These shows at the Meyerson are not only a comeback after a year-long hiatus of no gigs, but it is a rebirth…. The songs I’ve picked for this show encompass some of This Bitter Earth’s message, but also we have included new songs that mix classical with rock and roll and funk as well as jazz. I now know, my purpose as an artist is to break down these genre barriers and fully immerse the audience in what to me is just simply: music.”

Please note: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra does not appear on this program.

Best known for her collaborations with Josh Groban, Chris Botti and classic rock band Jethro Tull, and for her role as Annie Talarico in the critically acclaimed HBO Series Treme, Lucia Micarelli will bring the house down this summer in her performance at the Meyerson flipping from the likes of bluegrass to Led Zeppelin to Ravel to Tom Waits without batting an eye.   “My brain doesn’t separate genres of music,” she said.

Her life was front-loaded with classical training from the likes of Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman and even from Perlman’s teacher, the legendary Dorothy DeLay. It’s not that she got it out of her system early. She still loves to play the classics. Her system just needed more high-octane fuel.  Barely 20 years old, straight out of Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, she got the itch to stretch out and started moonlighting with local jazz and rock bands. Before long, she was sawing away with the vein-bursting Trans-Siberian Orchestra and touring with crossover stars like Josh Groban, Barbra Streisand and Ian Anderson’s flutey, meta-medieval rock band, Jethro Tull.

“I’ve had this great privilege of being exposed to so many different kinds of music, and learning about them from greats in those fields,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m switching hats. I think of it all as music that I love.”

Please note: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra does not appear on this program.

RAY CHEW music director
RAY CHEW AND VIVIAN SCOTT CHEW co-producers

Be ready to belt out your favorite Stevie Wonder hits like “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” “Isn’t She Lovely” and “My Cherie Amour” in this joyous sing-along concert. Composer and producer Ray Chew, Music Director of Dancing with the Stars, I Can See Your Voice and other hit programs, leads this jubilant celebration of an iconic music superstar.

Please note: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra does not appear on this program.

Meet the uniquely gifted BLKBOK, a neo-classical piano prodigy from Detroit who uses his dexterous arrangements and melodic scores to audibly illustrate experience, that of his own, and of his community’s across pivotal moments in American history.

“When people see me, they expect me to start rapping, and they’re not 100% wrong…I am a rapper, except I spit lyrics and tell my stories through my hands, with these notes.”

— BLKBOK, Charles Wilson III

Please note: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra does not appear on this program.

MAURICE COHN conducts
TAMBUCO PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE
DALLAS CHAMBER CHOIR
JON L. CULPEPPER artistic director

ALBERTO GINASTERA Estancia: Four Dances
DUKE ELLINGTON (ARR. MORTON GOULD) Solitude
SILVESTRE REVUELTAS Sensemayá
TRADITIONAL Barranco
GABRIELA ORTIZ Yanga

A partnership with the Latino Arts Project and African American Museum, Yanga is inspired by the story of Gaspar Yanga, an African prince who was shipped to Mexico as a slave in 1570, but managed to escape. He subsequently led a band of escaped slaves to raid the authorities’ caravans and eventually helped found the first free town from slavery in North America. He thus qualifies as a historic freedom fighter, which dovetails into the all-embracing message to mankind.

Latino Arts Project is proud to partner with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for a special concert to coincide with the exhibition Yanga: Journeys to Freedom currently at the African American Museum until October 31, 2022.

Fun-Guy Records Release Party for Justin Pickard and the Thunderbird Winos new album “The Memphis Recordings” at the fabulous Meyerson Symphony Center featuring:

• Reverend Horton Heat
• Justin Pickard and the Thunderbird Winos
• Jimmy Dale Richardson
• Lance Lipinsky

There will also be a FREE pre-concert meet and greet with Justin Pickard and Jim Heath from 6:30 – 7PM.