Coconino County Center for the Arts — Announcing CCA’s Fall Concert Season!

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Announcing our

Fall Concert Season

We are thrilled to launch our fall concert season with an diverse array of local favorites and acclaimed touring artists, offering something for every music lover.

Listed below are the first concerts of the season, and we’ll be announcing even more performances and dates in the weeks ahead. We can’t wait to welcome you to the Coconino Center for the Arts for another season of unforgettable live music!

EVENT CALENDAR

Summit Dub Squad – Celebrating 20 Years

CONCERT

Friday, August 29

Doors 6:30 pm; Show 7:30 pm

Summit Dub Squad is celebrating 20 years of high elevation sound flavor!! The Squad has just released their brand new, self-produced, 6th album titled “HIGHER GROUND” – a musically diverse homage to their hometown at 7000-feet elevation – and will perform several tunes from this new 13-song body of work. This event will be a seated, more-intimate theater listening session, focused on the positive, uplifting lyrics of lead singers B Dub the Artist and Hunter E RedDay, both of Dine’ (Navajo) heritage. Special guests will join the band and choice selections from every album will be performed. All ages irie fun for the entire family.

Summit Dub Squad is a roots reggae / positive hiphop band from Flagstaff, IrieZona. The musically and cultrally diverse group pulls fans and new listeners in with undeniable grooves and thoughtful lyrics. With 6 self-produced albums of original music and a myriad of classic cover songs, the band takes pride in never playing the same set twice, ensuring a fun, upful, and exciting experience every time they perform.Their energy is infectious and the message inviting, with peace, love, unity and respect at the core of their DIY mantra. The Summit crew is livicated to fostering a world were social and environmental justice are at the forefront of the conversation on the road to One Love Humanity.

For more information about Summit Dub Squad and to listen to the new album visit their website here.

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Interference Series Presents:

Thollem McDonas – Solo Piano

CONCERT

Sunday, September 14

Doors 6 pm; Show 7 pm

In conjunction with the Southwest Creative Music Convergence.

“Listening to Thollem play the piano is an astonishing experience. He has an innate ability to compose transcendent music using the piano as his expressive voice and to explore the depth and range of the instrument like no one else.” (Joan Jeanrenaud, Kronos Quartet)

Thollem’s music is genre-bending, code-switching, omni-idiomatic, and intersectional. Quality Revolutionary Entertainment! His music expresses the culmination of his life’s experiences in dialogue with the universe and fellow human beings. As a result of growing up in the culturally diverse SF Bay Area, his classical piano training, and his itinerant lifestyle since, Thollem’s interests, influences and inspirations range widely. He has spent most of his life performing and collaborating with hundreds of artists and communities throughout N. America and Europe and has released well over 100 albums on 27 different vanguard labels. Multitudes have inspired and influenced him as a pianist from Scriabin to Monk, Scarlatti to Nina Simone, Glenn Gould, John Cage, Art Tatum, as well as his contemporaries. Thollem’s parents were both pianists, and his earliest memories were of climbing up to play the inside of the piano.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Thollem began playing the piano, composing and improvising as a child, absorbing the sounds of his culturally diverse upbringing. As an adult he has continued to incorporate the breadth of musics he has experienced on his extensive travels. Since 2005, he has played over 1,500 concerts throughout N. America and Europe as a soloist and in collaboration with other musicians, dancers and filmmakers. In that time span, as lead facilitator or co-leader, Thollem has released close to 100 albums on 23 different vanguard labels. A very brief cross section of his many collaborators include William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Rob Mazurek, Ravish Momin, Michael Wimberly, Mike Watt and Carmina Escobar. He is the founding director of Estamos Ensemble, a Mexican-American cross border ensemble for musical exchange, the long-term temporary Guida of the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra and is a published author about art, politics and his travels in NewMusic Box, The Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Full Moon Magazine (Prague) and First American Art Magazine.

“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.”– William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)“Thollem displays a chameleonic ability to adapt to suit whatever musical context presents itself…there is more than one way to access the infinite.”- Daniel Spicer, The Wire“Blue collar virtuoso.”- Detroit Metro Times

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Interference Series Presents

FESTIVAL

Thursday, September 19 – Saturday, September 21

Please join us at the Coconino Center for the Arts to celebrate the 2nd Annual Southwest Collaborative Music Convergence!

Spanning three days and nights of concerts and presentations, this is a one-of-a-kind experience for musicians and audiences alike. Along with co-director Thollem McDonas, Interference Series has invited 30 individual musicians from around the Southwest to create unique sonic experiences that express the dynamics of the Southwest ecologically, socially, politically, and in response to CCA’s two exhibits, Shades of Route 66 and Route 66: Alternative Perspectives. We are grateful for the opportunity to bring together all of these exceptional artists who have spent their lives honing their craft through collaboration with others. Most of all, we are excited to share it with the community!

ARTIST ROSTER

Southwest musicians include:Abby Fisher, Betsy Hamill, Chad Kim, Chelsey Trejo, Chris Woodward, Edie Tsong, Eric Matchett, Gabby Isaac, Jeremy Schroeder, Kai Natseway, Lauren Sarah Hayes, Lillie Gordon, Michael Begay, Owen Davis, Sage Bond, Robert Clark (Igloo Martian), Rob Wallace, Somei Kundu, Spencer Huttenmeyer, Teo Morris, Thollem, and Vicki Brown.

SWCMC HISTORY

The Convergence (SWCMC) is an extension of a concert that was held in Tucson in February, 2023, that Thollem curated as part of the Peaceful Sky Benefit (www.peacefulsky.us). PSB was organized in order to raise awareness of the increasingly dangerous exercises the U.S. military is conducting in the southern desert. Based on the enthusiasm of the participants and the audiences, it became clear that the Convergence needed to happen again. The artists for this year’s Convergence include many who participated in Tucson as well as additional local musicians.

TICKETS

3-Day Passes Sold in advance. All times listed on ticketing page.

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Gareth Pearson

CONCERT

Thursday, September 26

Gareth Pearson is referred to as “The Welsh Tornado” which is particularly appropriate, seeing as this special talent combines fingerstyle pyrotechnics, with explosive lead runs making Pearson one of the most exciting acoustic musicians gigging today.

Gareth has a distinctive style that can be heard through his creative and innovative arrangements which cover a wide spectrum of genres, including country/folk/classical/pop/rock/jazz/swing and bluegrass music, along with his own beautiful and often intricate original compositions. Drawing his playing style initially from influences such as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Jerry Reed and Tommy Emmanuel, he has developed a style that is both inspiring and entertaining.

Within a year of taking up the guitar, Gareth was opening for Tommy Emmanuel on his 2005 UK tour. It was in Cardiff where Tommy invited Gareth to play at the CAAS convention (Chet Atkins Appreciation Society) in Nashville Tennessee. Later that year, Gareth was performing and touring alongside Ray Davies (The Kinks), John Renbourne, and Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Jukes. During the Southside Johnny tour, Gareth was invited by Southside to be flown over to the USA to open for his annual New Years Eve concert at the Count Basie Theatre in New Jersey. The following year Gareth was invited by Tommy Emmanuel to be the support act for his UK tour, following extensive UK supports to Jan Akkerman, Andy McKee and appearing at numerous Folk Festivals and Guitar workshops including the Montreal Jazz Festival.

With appearances throughout Europe and a growing reputation, Gareth was invited to perform at the 2008 Canadian Guitar Festival where he came to the attention of Candyrat Records. This lay the seed for Gareth to be the first UK guitarist to be signed by the label. On its release, Gareth’s debut album “Urban Echoes Vol 1” was selected by Acoustic Guitar editors and frequent contributors as one of the “Essential Acoustic Albums of 2010”. With Appearances at the 2009 Montreal Guitar Festival, USA and Worldwide tours and Guitar workshops, Gareth’s reputation as a performer and teacher is constantly growing.