According to the New York Times Raul Midón is “a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus,” he’s been making waves all over the world. Along with releasing 10 studio albums as a solo artist, the GRAMMY® Nominated Raul Midón – dubbed “an eclectic adventurist” by People magazine – has collaborated with such heroes as Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers, along with contributing to recordings by Queen Latifah, Snoop Dogg and the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s She Hate Me.
With his latest album, “If You Really Want”, released in September 2019, Midón’s voice and guitar ride the waves of an actual orchestra. “If You Really Want,” the title song from the new album was one that Midón wrote years ago, before he moved to New York in the hopes of making it. “I really had this song in my back pocket, and I’m glad I found the ideal place for it as the new album’s title track,” he says. “It’s about the power of positive thinking to fulfill your dreams, as I was able to do by becoming a professional musician, making records and touring the world. Here I am, recording with a great European orchestra [on the album]. This, like so many things in my career, has been a dream come true.”
Over the past decade, Midón has earned acclaim the world over, with a fan base that stretches from San Francisco to India, Amsterdam to Tokyo. A rapt critic for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper wrote: “Midón has a lovely voice, a beautifully controlled tenor that can express anything from tenderness to passion… And the guy can play. His strumming has a flamenco flourish, but after a while, you realize he can do every kind of accompaniment he needs on acoustic guitar.”
Ever since being told by some when he was a child that his blindness meant that “you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” Midón has lived a life devoted to beating the odds and shattering stereotypes, learning his own lessons along the way. “As someone who has never seen, I’ve always felt at a disadvantage in that lyric writing is usually very visual,” he says. “People really relate to images, and I’ve never seen images. But what I realized early on is that you have to write from what you know, and I hear, touch and feel intensely – and those are sensations and experiences that everyone can relate to.”
St. Cecilia Music Director Executive Director Cathy Holbrook, says, “The audience will be enthralled with Raul Midón. He is one of those artists that rises to the forefront of music and people can’t believe they are hearing what he alone artistically creates on stage. We are so excited to feature Raul Midón at St. Cecilia Music Center!”
Tickets for the Raul Midón show on February 27 are $40 and $45 and can be purchased by calling St. Cecilia Music Center at 616-459-2224 or visiting the box office at 24 Ransom Ave. NE. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.scmc-online.org. A post-concert “Meet-the-artist” party with a cash bar will be offered to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to possibly meet Raul Midón and obtain signed autographs of his CDs.
More about Raul Midón at www.raulmidon.com.
Other SCMC Acoustic Café Concerts for this season with tickets available include:
- Grammy-award winning bluegrass artists, The Infamous Stringdusters, will perform at St. Cecilia Music Center on February 6, 2020. Their uniquely powerful blend of bluegrass, rock and more has pivoted them to the top echelons of the blue-grass/rock scene. The New York Times has reported, “With a nod to the past and a firm foot down on the gas toward the future, the 'Dusters... don't leave bluegrass behind; they're stretching it from within."
- Guitarist / Singer Raul Midón will appear at SCMC on February 27, 2020. The New York Times named Raul Midón “a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus.” Along with releasing 10 studio albums as a solo artist, the GRAMMY® Nominated Raul Midón – dubbed “an eclectic adventurist” by People magazine – has collaborated with such heroes as Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers, along with contributing to recordings by Queen Latifah, Snoop Dogg and the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s She Hate Me.
- GRAMMY® award winning folk Americana singer and songwriter Marc Cohn will perform on March 19, 2019. After winning a Grammy for his soulful ballad “Walking in Memphis,” Marc Cohn solidified his place as one of this generation’s most compelling singer-songwriters, combining the precision of a brilliant tunesmith with the passion of a great soul man. Since his last time in Grand Rapids at SCMC in Spring 2017, Cohn has spent time on the road with legendary Michael McDonald and other American music greats including soul survivor William Bell. Bell won his first Grammy at age 78 with Cohn’s help in creating half of Bell’s celebrated album This is Where I Live. He will be coming back to St. Cecilia Music Center following his collaborative record to be released on August 9, 2019 with gospel legends the Blind Boys of Alabama titled Work To Do.
- Shawn Colvin returns for her second appearance at St. Cecilia Music Center on May 19, 2020 performing her newly released album Steady On Acoustic in its entirety. Her original 1989 album Steady On became her first Grammy Award winning album and brought her significant acclaim and a large devoted fan base. Colvin says, “I’ve played these songs countless times, primarily as a solo acoustic artist. All in all, this is the incarnation that feels most genuine. And so, to commemorate this milestone I decided to celebrate Steady On by recording it again, this time using only my voice and my guitar. This represents who I am as an artist and all I ever wanted to be, and I believe it does its predecessor proud.”
Raul Midón Bio
Raul Midón is...a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus.”
— New York Times
Along with releasing 10 studio albums as a solo artist, Grammy Nominated Raul Midón – dubbed “an eclectic adventurist” by People magazine – has collaborated with such heroes as Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers, along with contributing to recordings by Queen Latifah, Snoop Dogg and the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s She Hate Me. A native of New Mexico who was educated in the jazz program of the University of Miami – and who now lives in Maryland after years in New York City – Midón has earned acclaim the world over, with a fan base that stretches from San Francisco to India, Amsterdam to Tokyo. A rapt critic for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper wrote: “Midón has a lovely voice, a beautifully controlled tenor that can express anything from tenderness to passion… And the guy can play. His strumming has a flamenco flourish, but after a while, you realize he can do every kind of accompaniment he needs on acoustic guitar.”
For a glimpse of how magnetic Midón can be live, seek out on YouTube the clip of his appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman in 2006. Performing State Of Mind, the title track from his major-label debut, Midón unveils what would become his signature combination of silky voice and percussive guitar. His playing is a syncopated wonder in which bass, harmony and melodic lines fly from the fretboard in a way that belies the fact that all the music is being produced by just two hands. If that weren’t enough, Midón busts out his improvisational mouth-horn technique, in which he creates a bebop “trumpet” solo with his lips, earning himself a burst of mid-song applause from the audience. It’s the sort of performance that led the Huffington Post to describe how “he plays with such freedom and joy that his hands smile.”
The title of Midón’s 2017 release Bad Ass and Blind came from an apt description of its maker that soul icon Bill Withers endorsed; the album saw Midón collaborating with such top jazz players as trumpeter Nicholas Payton and pianist Gerald Clayton, and it earned the singer his GRAMMY nomination for “Best Jazz Vocal Performance.” NPR noted that the disc continues Midón’s “streak of records that cross boundaries with ease and head-turning musicality.” His live 2016 rendition of John Coltrane’s jazz classic “Giant Steps” – which sees him fly through all 12 keys on the guitar – earned more than a million views via Facebook, with no less than fusion hero Al Di Meola giving the performance a thumb’s up. Midón has also released the captivating CD/DVD Invisible Chains – Live from NYC, which documents an intimate concert in Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater from 2012.
Ever since being told by some when he was a child that his blindness meant that “you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” Midón has lived a life devoted to beating the odds and shattering stereotypes, learning his own lessons along the way. “As someone who has never seen, I’ve always felt at a disadvantage in that lyric writing is usually very visual,” he says. “People really relate to images, and I’ve never seen images. But what I realized early on is that you have to write from what you know, and I hear, touch and feel intensely – and those are sensations and experiences that everyone can relate to.”
Single Tickets
Single tickets to chamber, jazz, and folk concerts are also on sale now and can be purchased by phone at 616-459-2224 or online at www.scmc-online.org. For each concert, a post-concert party is open to all ticket-holders giving the audience the opportunity to possibly meet the artists and obtain signed CDs of their releases. Ticket prices: There is a $2.50 fee for all single tickets. All concerts start at 7:30pm. All concerts include a post-concert party for concert ticket holders.
SINGLE TICKETS
Folk Series single tickets
The Infamous Stringdusters
Thursday, February 6, 2020
A section $30
B section $35
Rosanne Cash with John Leventhal (Sold Out)
Wednesday, February 20, 2020
A section $55
B section $50
Chris Thile (Sold Out)
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
A section $55
B section $50
Raul Midón
Thursday, February 27, 2020
A section $45
B section $40
Marc Cohn
Thursday, March 19, 2019
A section $45
B section $40
Shawn Colvin
Tuesday, May 19, 2019
A section $45
B section $40
Jazz Series single tickets
Luciana Souza
Thursday, March 5, 2020
A section $45
B section $40
The Clayton Brothers
Thursday, April 16, 2020
A section $45
B section $40
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center single tickets
From Prague to Vienna
Thursday, April 30, 2020
A section $45
B section $40
St. Cecilia Music Center’s mission is to promote the study, appreciation and
performance of music in order to enrich the lives of West Michigan residents.
The Center fulfills this mission by
presenting visiting world-class artists in concert,
providing music education for all ages through our School of Music and
preserving a historic building for musical activities and community events
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