Tue, 03/07/2017 - 11:05 am

The Colorado Chautauqua Association, steward of Boulder’s cultural and historical gem the Colorado Chautauqua National Historic Landmark, announces an early assortment of artists performing at the Chautauqua Auditorium’s 120th season. The full season line up will be announced in April.

In addition to the concert line up, the Chautauqua summer series features something for everyone, including the 40th season of the six week Colorado Music Festival, the 32nd annual silent film series with live musical accompaniment, dance performances with Murmuration and the Cleo Parker Dance Ensemble, the 70th annual Barbershop Harmony Festival, hiking plays and much more. For a complete list of upcoming events, please visit chautauqua.com.

2017 Chautauqua Summer Concert PREVIEW

HOT RIZE with Special Guests

Thursday, June 1. 7:30 PM.

Tickets: $33.00 - $48.00 ($30.00 - $45.00 Concert Member)

Hot Rize’s return to the historic Chautauqua Auditorium stage is sure to please not only longtime fans of the band, but countless new fans who’ve discovered bluegrass and Americana music in more recent times. 

TAJMO: THE TAJ MAHAL & KEB' MO' BAND

Friday, June 2. 7:30 PM

Tickets: $53.00 - $68.00 ($50.00 - $65.00 Concert Member)

Blues titans Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ share the stage for an exciting night of music performing songs from their long-anticipated collaborative album, coming spring 2017 on Concord Records.

HUDSON: Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski & JOHN SCOFIELD

Sunday, June 11. 7:30 PM

Tickets: $43.00 - $58.00 ($40.00 - $55.00 Concert Member)

Jazz drumming and percussion legend Jack DeJohnette will turn 75 in the summer of 2017. In celebration of this milestone, DeJohnette has assembled Hudson, an all-star super group that includes bassist Larry Grenadier, keyboardist John Medeski and guitarist John Scofield, for a North American tour.

MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER with Special Guests

Monday, July 24. 7:30 PM

Tickets: $43.00 - $58.00 ($40.00 - $55.00 Concert Member)

Five-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Mary Chapin Carpenter hits the road in 2017, performing songs from her expansive 14-album catalog and new songs from her latest record “The Things That We Are Made Of,” released May 2016.

ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES with Special Guests

Tuesday, August 15 & Wednesday, August 16. 7:30 PM

Tickets: $35.00 - $50.00 ($32.00 - $47.00 Concert Member)

“Sea of Noise,” the second album by the high-voltage Birmingham, Alabama-based band, features an expanded eight-piece lineup of the widely praised soul rock unit. Longtime members Paul Janeway (lead vocals), Jesse Phillips (bass, guitar), Browan Lollar (guitars), Andrew Lee (drums), Al Gamble (keyboards) and Allen Branstetter (trumpet) are joined by Jason Mingledorff (saxophone, clarinet, flute) and Chad Fisher (trombone) for a blazing mating of 60’s soul fire – daubed with latter-day influences like Sly Stone, David Bowie and Prince.

THE STEELDRIVERS  with Special Guests

Friday, August 25. 7:30 PM

Tickets: $23.00 - $40.50 ($20.00 - $37.50 Concert Member)

The SteelDrivers’ innovative, soulful brand of bluegrass has made them one of the most successful bands on the contemporary bluegrass scene. Winner of the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album for “The Muscle Shoals Recordings,” the band speaks in their own accent, one that charms and sears and beguiles.

THE GIPSY KINGS featuring Nicolas Reyes and Tonino Baliardo

Tuesday, August 29. 7:30 PM

Tickets: $58.00 - $78.00 ($55.00 - $75.00 Concert Member)

The Grammy-winning band behind “Bamboléo” celebrates over 25 years of flamenco, salsa and pop fusion perfection in the party-starting spirit of the south of France.

TICKET INFORMATION:

·       All events take place in the historic Chautauqua Auditorium (b.1898)

·       Member Presale and General Public on sale info:

o   Chautauqua Concert Member Presale begins Monday, March 13 at 10:00 a.m. online only at tickets.chautauqua.com

o   General Public: Friday, March 17 at 10:00 a.m. online only at tickets.chautauqua.com

·       The Chautauqua Box Office Kiosk opens May 8 for phone and walk-up sales. Hours: 12 - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 12 - 8 p.m. on Auditorium event days. 303.440.7666.

·       Chautauqua Concert Members receive a discount on select tickets and advance purchase privileges.

o   The public is welcome to join as members at any time to take advantage of early purchase privileges and discounts.

·       All tickets are subject to a service fee.

·       The free HOP 2 Chautauqua shuttle is available for all Auditorium concerts. See individual event listing at chautauqua.com for schedule details.

Mon, 04/10/2017 - 10:18 am
Z2 Entertainment in partnership with Colorado Chautauqua is proud to announce the second wave of Chautauqua Summer Concerts! Colorado Chautauqua Association, the steward of Boulder's cultural and historical gem, the Colorado Chautauqua National Historic Landmark, announces a second wave of artists performing at Chautauqua Auditorium as part of the iconic venue's 120th season. 
 
In addition to popular music concerts, the Chautauqua summer series features something for everyone, including the Colorado Music Festival orchestra, the 32nd annual silent film series with live musical accompaniment, dance performances with Murmuration, Ballets with a Twist and the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, the 70th annual Barbershop Harmony Festival, film festivals, hiking plays, family events and much more. For a complete list of upcoming events, please visit chautauqua.com
 

2017 CHAUTAUQUA SUMMER CONCERTS

PUNCH BROTHERS with Special Guests
Monday, June 12. 7:30 PM.
Tickets: $40.00 – $55.50 ($37.00 – $52.50 Concert Member)
Described by the New York Times as “American country-classical chamber music,” the Punch Brothers (Chris Thile (mandolin), Gabe Witcher (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass)) take the Chautauqua stage to showcase their T Bone Burnett-produced album, “The Phosphorescent Blues.”

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS with Special Guests
Friday, June 16 & Saturday, June 17. 7:30 PM
Tickets: $35.00 – $50.00 ($32.00 – $47.00 Concert Member)
The Drive-By Truckers have always been outspoken, telling a distinctly American story via craft, character and concept, all backed by sonic ambition and social conscience. Founded by singer/songwriter/guitarists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, their latest release, “American Band,” is a powerful and legitimately provocative work, hard edged and finely honed. Hood and Cooley are joined by bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS with Special Guests
Monday, July 31. 7:30 PM
Tickets: $33.00 – $48.00 ($30.00 – $45.00 Concert Member)
We’ve all heard about the iconic vibe of Route 66 and the ocean air of the Pacific Coast Highway. But there are untold stories emanating from countless highways across the land that cut deep into the spirit of those who traverse them. Lucinda Williams is one of those people, and with The Ghosts of Highway 20,” she brings those stories to life and gives a vivid look at how the highway has been a backdrop throughout her life.

COLIN HAY with Trace Bundy
Thursday, August 10. 7:00 PM
Tickets: $33.00 – $48.00 ($30.00 – $45.00 Concert Member)
Singer-songwriter Colin Hay is most beloved for his intimate, confessional live shows but most widely known for being an influential and celebrated frontman. His inclusion as a playlist favorite from the likes of Metallica to The Lumineers reflects his continuing relevance and broad appeal. Now with both ’80s fame and indie credibility, it’s possible that Hay has delivered the defining album of his solo career, “Fierce Mercy.”
Trace Bundy, dubbed the “Acoustic Ninja,” will open tonight’s show

INDIGO GIRLS with Special Guests
Sunday, September 3. 7:30 PM
Tickets: $38.00 – $63.00 ($35.00 – $60.00 Concert Member)*
Summer at Chautauqua wouldn’t be complete without the perennial crowd favorite Indigo Girls. Decades into their career, the Grammy-winning folk-rock duo still amazes conventional pundits with their ability to grow and thrive no matter the direction of the music industry. The Indigo Girls have spent 35 years performing together, produced 15 albums (seven gold, four platinum, and one double platinum), and have toured the world over. It is rare to find musicians together so long, rarer still with such profound successes.

STEEP CANYON RANGERS with Special Guests
Thursday, September 21. 7:30 PM
Tickets: $23.00 – $38.00 ($20.00 – $35.00 Concert Member)
Grammy award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers unveil their highly anticipated ninth studio album, “Radio,” a project that further illustrates the band’s dynamic songwriting, instrumental virtuosity and high-energy performance. Members Woody Platt (guitar), Graham Sharp (banjo), Charles R. Humphrey III (bass), Mike Guggino (mandolin), Nicky Sanders (fiddle) and Mike Ashworth (box kit) are also known for collaborations with actor/comedian and respected banjo player Steve Martin and esteemed singer-songwriter Edie Brickell.

2017 Summer Concert Line Up

June 1: Hot Rize*
June 2: TajMo: The Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ Band – Sold Out
June 11: Hudson*: Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski & John Scofield
June 12: Punch Brothers
June 16: Drive-By Truckers
June 17: Drive-By Truckers
July 24: Mary Chapin Carpenter*
July 31: Lucinda Williams
Aug 10: Colin Hay with Trace Bundy
Aug 15: St. Paul & The Broken Bones*
Aug 16: St. Paul & The Broken Bones*
Aug 25: The SteelDrivers*
Aug 29: The Gipsy Kings*
Sept 3: Indigo Girls
Sept 21: Steep Canyon Rangers

*These shows on sale now! Buy tickets online.

Sat, 02/19/2022 - 10:46 am

With five GRAMMYs, 14 Blues Foundation Awards, and a groundbreaking career spanning nearly 50 years under his belt, Keb’ Mo’s got nothing left to prove. Just don’t tell him that.

“I may be turning 70,” Keb’ reflects, “but I’m still breathing and I’m still hungry. I’m still out there going for it every single day.”

Born and raised in Compton, Keb’ began his remarkable journey at the age of 21, when he landed his first major gig playing with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach. For the next 20 years, Keb’ would work primarily behind the scenes, establishing himself as a respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger with a unique gift for linking the past and present in his evocative playing and singing.  In 1994 he would introduce the world to Keb’ Mo’ with the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. Critics were quick to take note of Keb’s modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds, and two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with Just Like You. In the decades to come, Keb’ would take home four more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart seven times; perform everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate with many including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett; have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and Martin; compose music for television series like Mike and Molly, Memphis Beat, B Positive, and Martha Stewart Living; and earn the Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance.

In addition to his extraordinary musical output, Keb’ also established himself as a captivating onscreen presence over the years, appearing as himself in Martin Scorcese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and even the iconic children’s series Sesame Street. He flexed his acting chops in a wide variety of projects, as well, portraying Robert Johnson in the 1998 documentary Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl, Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum in John Sayles’ 2007 film Honeydripper. A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Keb’ has also performed on Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits in addition to appearing on nationally televised broadcasts from The Kennedy Center, The Ryman Auditorium, and Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival.

A passionate philanthropist and outspoken activist, Keb’ has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of social, environmental, and racial justice throughout his career. As a celebrity mentor with The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program, which began under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Keb’ “adopted” The Johnson School for Excellence in Chicago, where he teamed up with teachers, students, and parents to help develop a thriving arts education program, and as a longtime ambassador for the Playing For Change Foundation, he’s supported the non-profit from its early days in its quest to provide free music education and basic needs like food, water, medicine, clothing, books, and school supplies to children around the world.

For more information on Keb’ Mo’, please visit his official website at www.kebmo.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

KEB’ MO’

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Monday, June 27, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, February 18 at 10am HERE

$47.00 - $65.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 02/22/2022 - 11:02 am

“Funky, cool and bad,” is how Robert Cray describes his latest album, That’s What I Heard, out February 28. “I thought if it we could get this thing that Sam Cooke used to have, the kind of sound that early Sam Cooke records had, that we could pull this off,” says producer Steve Jordan.

Over the past four decades, Cray has created a sound that rises from American roots, blues, soul and R&B, with five Grammy wins, 20 acclaimed studio albums and a bundle of live albums that punctuate the Blues Hall of Famer’s career. On That’s What I Heard, Robert celebrates the music of Curtis Mayfield, Bobby “Blue” Bland, The Sensational Nightingales and more, alongside four newly written songs. Listen to the first single “Anything You Want” here (by Robert Cray), available now on all streaming services.

Cray and Jordan go way back, having met during the making of the Chuck Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, in 1987. They started working together in 1999, when Jordan produced the Grammy-winning Take Your Shoes Off, and the recent Grammy-nominated LP, Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm. That’s What I Heard is their sixth album. “Once you start working with Steve, it’s kind of hard to get away from him,” said Robert.

The music on That’s What I Heard falls into two camps, the sweet and the funky. Of the former, “You’re the One” comes from the Bobby “Blue” Bland songbook. “There’s this thing where I feel you kind of gotta get out of your own head when you're covering one of your heroes,” Cray explained. “Bobby’s one of those. You just let yourself go, and do the song because you love it.”

Don Gardner’s “My Baby Likes to Boogaloo” and the Billy Sha-Rae minor hit, “Do It” are acknowledged rarities (the originals can be heard on the compilation, Groove & Grind: Rare Soul). “Do It” is leaner and meaner, the sort of bare-bones funk that defined the Detroit club sound in the early ’70s with Sha-Rae, Dennis Coffey, and Earl Van Dyke. Cray’s steamroller rendition gets a little extra push from guest guitarist Ray Parker, Jr., who played in Sha-Rae’s band as a teen.

“Burying Ground” is a sacred song from the Sensational Nightingales, inspired by Cray’s youth, when Sundays on the stereo were reserved for his parents’ gospel records. Curtis Mayfield wrote “You’ll Want Me Back” for Major Lance, and Cray wrote “To Be with You” for his late friend, Tony Joe White. “Hot” is another Cray original. “As for the lyrics, “We always say to ourselves, ‘I’m old, but I’m hot,’” he said, and laughed. Spotted hanging around the studio, Steve Perry sang harmony vocals on “Promises You Can’t Keep,” written by Steve Jordan, Kim Wilson and Danny Kortchmar.

“Robert is just a great person besides being extraordinary talent,” adds Jordan. “People gravitate to his guitar playing first, but I think he’s one of the best singers I’ve heard in my life. Not only because of his singing ability, but his interpretations. He’s such an honest soul in my opinion.”

Robert’s band features Richard Cousins (bass), Dover Weinberg (keyboards), Terence F. Clark (drums),

ROBERT CRAY

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, February 25 at 10am HERE

$32.00 - $50.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 02/22/2022 - 4:34 pm

The Wailin’ Jennys are Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody and Heather Masse three distinct voices that together make an achingly perfect vocal sound.

Starting as a happy accident of solo singer/songwriters getting together for a one-time-only performance at a tiny guitar shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba, The Wailin’ Jennys have grown over the years into one of today’s most beloved international folk acts. Founding members Moody and Mehta along with New York-based Masse continue to create some of the most exciting music on the folk-roots scene, stepping up their musical game with each critically lauded recording and thrilling audiences with their renowned live performances.

In 2004, The Wailin’ Jennys released their first full-length album 40 Days to great critical acclaim, netting a 2005 Juno Award (Canadian Grammy) for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year. Bolstered by their frequent appearances on Garrison Keillor’s public radio show A Prairie Home Companion, The Jennys exploded onto the roots music scene, performing at packed venues across the Canada, the U.S. and throughout the world.

The Jennys’ sophomore album, 2006’s Firecracker, served as a powerful follow-up to their career-making debut. Artistically, the record found The Jennys stepping out of the folk realm and into the world of alt-country, pop and rock. Garnering much attention, it was nominated for a Juno Award and won a 2007 Folk Alliance Award for Contemporary Release of the Year. Firecracker had legs, spending over 56 weeks on the Billboard charts.

The trio’s 2009 release, Live at Mauch Chunk Opera House, also spent over a year on the Billboard bluegrass charts. That landmark live album bottled the lightning of The Jennys’ live performances with show-stopping harmonies, impressive instrumental prowess, breathtaking songs and, of course, witty stage banter.

For 2011’s Juno-winning Bright Morning Stars, The Wailin’ Jennys joined the ranks of Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris and recorded with award-winning producer Mark Howard. Co-produced by frequent Jennys collaborator and Juno Award-nominated David Travers-Smith, the album combined fresh and innovative sounds with the band’s signature harmonies — a perfect mix of Americana, pop and traditional folk that has become a modern classic. Bright Morning Stars took home the Juno for Roots and Traditional album of the year in 2012.

In 2017, The Jennys turned 15 years old. To mark the occasion, the band took time away from the demands of motherhood to record and release a celebratory album for their fans: Fifteen. A carefully curated collection of some of their favourite songs, the new record was recorded true to their live show sound with their long time beloved side players, Richard Moody and Adam Dobres. Steeped in the artistry and elegance that has defined their career, the album presents the Jennys at their very best, highlighting their heartfelt vocals, otherworldly harmonies, and sophisticated arrangements. Fifteen was nominated for a Juno award in 2018 for Traditional Roots album of the year.

THEY WAILIN’ JENNYS

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Friday, September 30, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, February 25 at 10am HERE

$30.00 - $48.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 12:09 pm

Steve Earle is one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of his generation. A protege of legendary songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, he quickly became a master storyteller in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, The Pretenders, and countless others. 1986 saw the release of his record, Guitar Town, which shot to number one on the country charts and is now regarded as a classic of the Americana genre. Subsequent releases like The Revolution Starts...Now (2004), Washington Square Serenade (2007), and TOWNES (2009) received consecutive GRAMMY® Awards. Restlessly creative across artistic disciplines, Earle has published both a novel and collection of short stories; produced albums for other artists such as Joan Baez and Lucinda Williams and acted in films, television (including David Simon’s acclaimed The Wire), and on the stage. He currently hosts a radio show for Sirius XM. In 2009, Earle appeared in the off-Broadway play Samara, for which he also wrote a score that The New York Times described as “exquisitely subliminal.” Earle wrote music for and appeared in Coal Country, a riveting public theater play that dives into the most-deadly mining disaster in U.S. history, for which he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. His 2020 album Ghosts of West Virginia was named as one of “The 50 Best Albums of 2020 So Far” by Rolling Stone.  Mr. Earle was recently (Nov 2020) inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and released his 21st studio album J.T. on January 6th (2021) as a tribute to his late son Justin Townes Earle.

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES

WITH SPECIAL GUEST THE WHITMORE SISTERS

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, March 4 at 10am HERE

$32.00 - $45.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/08/2022 - 11:25 am

Over the last four decades, Béla Fleck has made a point of boldly going where no banjo player has gone before, a musical journey that has earned him 15 Grammys in nine different fields, including Country, Pop, Jazz, Instrumental, Classical and World Music. But his roots are in bluegrass, and that’s where he returns with his first bluegrass tour in 24 years, My Bluegrass Heart.

My Bluegrass Heart is the third chapter of a trilogy which began with the 1988 album, Drive, and continued in 1991 with The Bluegrass Sessions. Fleck’s band will spotlight a multi-generational gamut of the best of bluegrass players, all sporting a myriad of Grammy Awards and nominations, as well as gigantic piles of IBMA awards for their instruments: fiddler Billy Contreras, mandolinist Sierra Hull, multi-instrumentalist Justin Moses, guitarist Shaun Richardson, and bassist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Schatz.

My Bluegrass Heart is available now from BMG; learn more at BelaFleck.com!

BELA FLECK’S MY BLUEGRASS HEART

FEAT. SIERRA HULL, BILLY CONTRERAS, JUSTIN MOSES, SHAUN RICHARDSON, & MARK SCHATZ

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, March 11 at 10am HERE

$37.00 - $55.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/29/2022 - 12:50 pm

“Everyone has these little kingdoms in their minds,” says Chris Wood, “and the songs on this album all explore the ways we find peace in them. They look at how we deal with our dreams and our regrets and our fears and our loves. They look at the stories we tell ourselves and the ways we balance the darkness and the light.”

That balance of darkness and light is at the heart of Kingdom In My Mind, The Wood Brothers’ seventh studio release and their most spontaneous and experimental collection yet. Recorded over a series of freewheeling, improvised sessions, the record is a reckoning with circumstance, mortality, and human nature, one that finds strength in accepting what lies beyond our control. Thoughtfully honing in on the bittersweet beauty that underlies our doubt and pain, the songs grapple with the power of our external surroundings to shape our internal worlds (and vice versa) through vivid character studies and unflinching self-examination. The lyrics dig deep here, but the arrangements always manage to remain buoyant, drawing from across a broad sonic spectrum to create a transportive, effervescent listening experience that’s indicative of the trio’s unique place in the modern musical landscape.

“My brother came to this band from the blues and gospel world, and my history was all over the map with jazz and R&B,” says Chris Wood, who first rose to fame with the pioneering trio Medeski Martin & Wood. “The idea for this group has always been to marry our backgrounds, to imagine what might happen if Robert Johnson and Charles Mingus had started a band.”

Kingdom In My Mind follows The Wood Brothers’ most recent studio release, 2018’s One Drop Of Truth, which hit #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and garnered the band their first GRAMMY Award-nomination for Best Americana Album. NPR praised the record’s “unexpected changes and kaleidoscopic array of influences,” while Uncut hailed its “virtuosic performances and subtly evocative lyrics,” and Blurt proclaimed it “a career-defining album.” Tracks from the record have racked up roughly 8 million streams on Spotify alone, and the band took the album on the road for extensive tour dates in the US and Europe, including their first-ever headline performance at Red Rocks, two nights at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore (captured on their 2019 release, Live At The Fillmore), and festival appearances everywhere from Bonnaroo to XPoNential.

On past records, the band -- brothers Oliver and Chris Wood, and Jano Rix -- would often write a large batch of songs and then deliberately capture them all at once, but when it came to making Kingdom In My Mind, The Wood Brothers began recording without even realizing it. At the time, the trio thought they were simply breaking in their new Nashville recording studio/rehearsal space, laying down a series of extended instrumental jam sessions with engineer Brook Sutton as a way to learn the lay of the land. Some rooms, they found, were spacious with natural reverb, others were tight and dry; some recording setups required a gentle touch, others encouraged blistering energy.

“We weren’t performing songs,” explains Oliver. “We were just improvising and letting the music dictate everything. Normally when you’re recording, you’re thinking about your parts and your performances, but with these sessions, we were just reacting to each other and having fun in the moment.”

There was something undeniably alive and uninhibited about those performances, and after listening back, the band realized they’d never be able to recreate such spontaneous magic. So, like a sculptor chipping away at a block of marble, Chris took the band’s sprawling improvisations and carefully chiseled out verses and choruses and bridges and solos until distinctive songs began to take shape, songs that reflected influences and elements of the band (like Jano’s smoldering piano work and Chris’s affinity for Latin and African music) that had never shone through in quite the same way before. From there, the brothers divvied up the material that spoke to them most, penning lyrics both separately and together as they pondered what it takes to know contentment in our chaotic and confusing world.

The jaunty “Little Bit Sweet,” which was born from the band’s very first session, learns to appreciate the ups and downs in the circle of life, while the soulful “Cry Over Nothing” and hypnotic “Little Blue” playfully meditate on ego and perspective, and the funky “Little Bit Broken” celebrates the imperfections that make us human. Tracks like the bluesy “A Dream’s A Dream” and hypnotic “Don’t Think About My Death,” meanwhile, grapple with separating truth from fiction, ultimately coming to terms with the fact that our brains will always find new ways to blur those lines. Though the album advocates for acceptance, it’s not a passive brand the brothers sing about, but rather one rooted in strength and empowerment. To understand exactly what that means, look no further than album opener “Alabaster,” which paints a deeply empathetic portrait of a woman who’s broken free from the shackles of her old life and started over fresh.

“At the same time we were making this album, we were looking for some sort of philanthropic organization we could support with our music and in a bit of synchronicity, we came across this great group called Thistle Farms, which was based just down the street from our studio,” says Oliver. “Their goal is to help women who have been victims of sex trafficking or prostitution or addiction to get off the street and into safe housing where they can participate in therapy and job training. The work they were doing was so inspiring and it felt like such a fit with the kind of album we were writing that we teamed up with them to donate a portion of ticket sales from all our shows. It’s our way of using what we’ve got to do whatever good we can in the world.”

More than anything, it’s that mindset, that recognition that we’ve all been dealt our own particular hand of cards and life is in the way we play them, that defines Kingdom In My Mind. As Oliver sings on the captivating “Satisfied,” which finds its narrator wondering about the glories of the afterlife before ultimately deciding to make the most of his time on Earth, “I’ve got nothing left to be afraid of / Because I will be satisfied.” With an album this remarkable, The Wood Brothers have plenty to be satisfied about.

THE WOOD BROTHERS

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Monday, July 18, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 1st at 10am HERE

$37.00 - $50.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Sat, 04/02/2022 - 1:52 pm

Nicolas Reyes has been the leader and co-founder of the Gipsy Kings for well over 30 years. In the past three decades, they have dominated the World Music charts and sold more than 14 million albums worldwide. Their platinum compilation, The Best of the Gipsy Kings, was charting for over a year upon its release and their ninth studio album, Savor Flamenco, was awarded the Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2013.

This iconic legacy began when Nicolas’ father, Jose Reyes, formed a celebrated flamenco duo with Manitas de Plata (which boasted fans as famed as Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso). When the pair parted ways, the elder Reyes became even more popular upon starting his own band, backed by his son, called Los Reyes. In later years, Nicolas headed out on his own and began playing in the town of Arles in the south of France. He traveled throughout the country, busking on the streets of Saint-Tropez, playing wherever he could. Having adopted the perpetual motion of the gypsy lifestyle, his band eventually translated “Los Reyes” and became the Gipsy Kings.

The band’s music went on to fuse with popular culture. In addition to the accolades above, the traveling Gipsy Kings have played some of the world’s greatest stages, from the Hollywood Bowl to Royal Albert Hall as well as hitting the big screen. Their rendition of “Hotel California” was included in the film The Big Lebowski and the HBO series Entourage. The 2010 film Toy Story 3 featured a Gipsy Kings version of the movie’s popular, Randy Newman-penned theme, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. The Gipsy Kings recently featured in a Big Lebowski spinoff The Jesus Rolls with Reyes appearing in person with the director and star, John Turturro, for some of the promotion.

As active as this remarkable collective remains, they are also confident in the future of their legacy. “Even though it’s been 30 years, we want to keep on making new music because it’s our life. It’s who we are,” says Nicolas Reyes. “But I think there will be a time when we pass down the Gipsy Kings to our sons”.

30 years is an eternity in pop music but the story of the Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes has the depth to endure. Theirs is a music that extends through generations, to the sounds of their ancestors—Spanish Romani people who fled the Catalonia region during the Spanish Civil War—and reflects the vibrantly eclectic and peripatetic history of the gitanos.

GIPSY KINGS featuring NICOLAS REYES

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 1st at 10am HERE

$57.50 - $115.50 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 04/19/2022 - 6:42 pm

Deep-rooted fans who discovered Rodrigo y Gabriela through their 2006 self-titled breakout album have long recognized the Mexicans’ mastery of their instruments. Rodrigo’s shimmering, hummingbird flourishes hovering over Gabriela’s extraordinary engine room rhythm section are a staple for the duo.  Through relentless touring and terrific word-of-mouth support, Rodrigo y Gabriela have established themselves as a hugely in-demand live act, particularly in America, where they sold out the Hollywood Bowl (two nights) and the Red Rocks Amphitheater as recently as summer 2018. They have also sold out multiple nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Le Zenith in Paris and Radio City Music Hall in New York, not to mention venues in Australia, Japan and Europe. With career album sales well in excess of 1.5 million worldwide, Rodrigo y Gabriela have established themselves as globally successful artists who are eager to write new chapters in their already illustrious story.

RODRIGO Y GABRIELA

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 22nd at 10am HERE

$55.00 - $115.00 Reserved & General Admission Tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Wed, 05/04/2022 - 9:27 am

As world travelers for nearly two decades, Rising Appalachia have merged multiple global music influences with their own southern roots to create the inviting new folk album, Leylines. Remarkably the band has built its legion of listeners independently -- a self-made success story that has led to major festival appearances and sold-out shows at venues across the country.

Founded by sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, the band established an international fan base due to relentless touring, tireless activism, and no small degree of stubborn independence. However, for the first time, they opted to bring in a producer for the new album, teaming up with the legendary Joe Henry on the sessions. These were also their first recording sessions outside of the South. For 10 days, all six band members lived and recorded in a castle-like studio in Marin County, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. As a result, a sense of unity and immediacy can be heard throughout their seventh album, Leylines.

“As far as recording goes, we’re open creatively, but we’ve often preferred elements of live recording. I mean, we’re folk musicians at our core,” Leah explains. “The experience of playing music together in one room, looking at each other, is the bedrock of what we do and how we’ve grown up with music. I think Joe very much felt that way as well. He was very clear at the beginning that he was going to encourage us to have as many element of a live recording as possible.”

Although Leah and Chloe Smith consider their voices as their primary instrument, Leah also plays banjo and bodhran on the album, while Chloe plays guitar, fiddle, and banjo. They are joined on Leylines by longtime members David Brown (stand-up bass, baritone guitar) and Biko Casini (world percussion, n’goni), as well as two new members: West African musician Arouna Diarra (n’goni, talking drum) and Irish musician Duncan Wickel (fiddle, cello). The sonic textures of these two cultures are woven into Leylines, enhancing the stunning blend of folk, world, and urban music that has become Rising Appalachia’s calling card.

“Our songwriting ties into those traditions as well,” Chloe says. “With some of our original songs, it’s a reflection of the times. We’re folk singers and we consider this a folk album, so there’s a lot in there. There’s word of politics, of being women in the music industry, as well as a lot about our lives on the road.”

Indeed, Rising Appalachia has toured British Columbia by sailboat, traversed the U.S. and Europe by train, and engaged in immersive cultural exchange programs in Bulgaria, Ireland, Southern Italy, Central and South America – not to mention the countless miles in a van. Tour highlights include: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco; Music Hall Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York; Boulder Theatre in Boulder, Colorado; and the Showbox in Seattle, Washington. The band consistently sells between 400 and 1500 tickets wherever they play, a testament to their loyal fan base.

Leah and Chloe grew up in urban Atlanta as the city’s hip hop scene began to flourish. They absorbed those rhythms through the music they heard at school, then traveled with their family to fiddle camps all across the Southeast on the weekends. The young girls weren’t all that interested in the old-time playing, but their parents were incredibly devout in their study and practice of Appalachian music.

After high school, Leah decided to postpone college and travel internationally. Feeling homesick while living in Southern Mexico, she looked for a connection to her past and taught herself how to play banjo. “I realized that I wanted something from home that I could share, something that would tell people a bit more of the story of where I came from, other than the news,” she recalls.

A few years later, when Chloe came to visit her abroad, Leah offered some clawhammer banjo lessons. They didn’t necessarily realize it at the time but a musical partnership had been established. Upon their return to the United States, they recorded an album, which they considered an art project, to sell whenever they sang at farmer’s markets. They printed 500 copies, figuring that would last them a lifetime. However, when a local college professor heard them singing at a Christmas party, he booked them as part of a Celtic holiday concert in Atlanta. After two performances, every CD had been sold.

Surprised and overwhelmed, they mulled over a career as full-time musicians, then realized that performing could be just one component of a greater overall vision – one that includes advocating for social justice, racial justice, environmental justice, and Indigenous rights.

“We’re able to filter in so many of our passions into this project,” Chloe says. “We do a lot of activism work. We do a lot of outreach. Leah is a visual artist and she can funnel her visual eye into the project. I love to write, so that comes in. There’s a big container and canvas for our life’s work here. Music is part of it, but there are a lot of other creative vehicles that are driving Rising Appalachia.”

Special guests on Leylines include folk hero Ani DiFranco, soulful songwriter Trevor Hall, and jazz trumpeter Maurice Turner. The album title alludes to the concept of invisible lines believed to stretch around the world between sacred spaces, bonded by a spiritual and magnetic presence. That deep sense of connection is key to understanding Rising Appalachia as a whole. “Rising Appalachia has come out of this idea that we can take these traditions of southern music – that we’ve been born and raised with – and we can rise out of them, creating all these different bridges between cultures and stories to make them feel alive.” Leah says. “Our music has its foundation in heritage and tradition, but we’re creating a music that also feels reflective of the times right now. That’s always been our work.”

RISING APPALACHIA

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Saturday, September 3, 2022

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, May 6 at 10am HERE

$28.00 - $41.00 General Admission & Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Thu, 03/09/2023 - 3:11 pm

Nicolas Reyes has been the leader and co-founder of the Gipsy Kings for well over 30 years. In the past three decades, they have dominated the World Music charts and sold more than 14 million albums worldwide. Their platinum compilation, The Best of the Gipsy Kings, was charting for over a year upon its release and their ninth studio album, Savor Flamenco, was awarded the Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2013.

This iconic legacy began when Nicolas’ father, Jose Reyes, formed a celebrated flamenco duo with Manitas de Plata (which boasted fans as famed as Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso). When the pair parted ways, the elder Reyes became even more popular upon starting his own band, backed by his son, called Los Reyes. In later years, Nicolas headed out on his own and began playing in the town of Arles in the south of France. He traveled throughout the country, busking on the streets of Saint-Tropez, playing wherever he could. Having adopted the perpetual motion of the gypsy lifestyle, his band eventually translated “Los Reyes” and became the Gipsy Kings.

The band’s music went on to fuse with popular culture. In addition to the accolades above, the traveling Gipsy Kings have played some of the world’s greatest stages, from the Hollywood Bowl to Royal Albert Hall as well as hitting the big screen. Their rendition of “Hotel California” was included in the film The Big Lebowski and the HBO series Entourage. The 2010 film Toy Story 3 featured a Gipsy Kings version of the movie’s popular, Randy Newman-penned theme, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. The Gipsy Kings recently featured in a Big Lebowski spinoff The Jesus Rolls with Reyes appearing in person with the director and star, John Turturro, for some of the promotion.

As active as this remarkable collective remains, they are also confident in the future of their legacy. “Even though it’s been 30 years, we want to keep on making new music because it’s our life. It’s who we are,” says Nicolas Reyes. “But I think there will be a time when we pass down the Gipsy Kings to our sons”.

30 years is an eternity in pop music but the story of the Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes has the depth to endure. Theirs is a music that extends through generations, to the sounds of their ancestors—Spanish Romani people who fled the Catalonia region during the Spanish Civil War—and reflects the vibrantly eclectic and peripatetic history of the gitanos.

GIPSY KINGS feat. NICOLAS REYES

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 10 at 10am HERE

$62.50 - $124.50 General Admission & Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Thu, 03/09/2023 - 3:22 pm

The Wailers are a rare breed of musicians who have earned their place in the annals of music history. Their culture-defining music, embodying the spirit of the 70s reggae movement, has left an indelible mark on the industry.

Experience the magic of their timeless classics and incredible cuts from Bob Marley’s vast repertoire in a set that is truly unforgettable. Under the guidance of Aston Barrett Jr, son of the legendary “Familyman”, The Wailers continue to preserve the legacy of their iconic sound.

THE WAILERS

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 10 at 10am HERE

$25.00 - $38.00 General Admission & Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Fri, 03/17/2023 - 7:13 am

Rock ‘n’ roll is often hard to define, or even to find, in these fractured musical times. But to paraphrase an old saying, you know it when you hear it.                    

And you always hear it with the Wallflowers. For the past 30 years, the Jakob Dylan-led act has stood as one of rock’s most dynamic and purposeful bands – a unit dedicated to and continually honing a sound that meshes timeless songwriting and storytelling with a hard-hitting and decidedly modern musical attack. That signature style has been present through the decades, baked into the grooves of smash hits like 1996’s Bringing Down the Horse as well as more recent and exploratory fare like 2012’s Glad All Over.                

Even so, in recent years, Dylan – the Wallflowers’ founding singer, songwriter and guitarist – has repeatedly stepped outside of his band, first with a pair of more acoustic and rootsy records, 2008’s Seeing Things and 2010’s Women + Country, and then with the 2018 film Echo in the Canyon and the accompanying soundtrack, which saw him collaborate with a host of artists classic and contemporary, from Neil Young and Eric Clapton to Beck and Fiona Apple.            

But while it’s been nine long years since we’ve heard from the group with whom he first made his mark, the Wallflowers are silent no more. And Dylan always knew they’d return. “The Wallflowers is much of my life’s work,” he says simply.            

Plus, he adds with a laugh, “It’s pretty hard to get a good band name, so if you have one, keep it.”

Good band name aside, that life’s work continues with Exit Wounds, the brand-new Wallflowers studio offering. The collection marks the first new Wallflowers material since Glad All Over. And while the wait has been long, the much-anticipated record finds the band’s signature sound – lean, potent and eminently entrancing – intact, even as Dylan surrounds himself with a fresh cast of musicians.

Which, the front man is quick to point out, is not all that unusual. “The Wallflowers has always been a vehicle for me to make great rock ‘n’ roll records,” he says. “And sometimes the lineup that makes the record transfers over into touring, and sometimes it doesn’t. But my intention is always to make the Wallflowers record I want to make, using the musicians I have beside me.”

Dylan’s vision has always been the core of the Wallflower’s music. How he chooses to express that vision, however, is what makes a song a Wallflowers song. “I usually just let the songs tell me what kind of arrangements they need,” he says. “And if they're asking for full-band electric arrangements, then that’s what the Wallflowers provide. And I knew I wanted to make a full-band electric record this time out.”    

And made one he has, with one special guest on board – Shelby Lynne, who lends her voice to three of the album’s tracks. “I hadn’t met Shelby before, but like most people, I’ve been a fan of hers for quite some time,” Dylan says. “She has one of those voices that's very uncommon, very unique, very rare.”

But there was more to their duet than just a mutual appreciation. “You can have your favorite singer come in, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have any connection – there has to be more than that,” Dylan continues. “And as soon as I heard Shelby sing, I knew we had something.”

That “something” is present throughout Exit Wounds, which, true to its title, is an ode to people – individual and collective – that have, to put it mildly, been through some stuff.

“I think everybody – no matter what side of the aisle you’re on – wherever we’re going to next, we're all taking a lot of exit wounds with us,” Dylan says. “Nobody is the same as they were four years ago. That, to me, is what Exit Wounds signifies. And it's not meant to be negative at all. It just means that wherever you’re headed, even if it’s to a better place, you leave people and things behind, and you think about those people and those things and you carry them with you. Those are your exit wounds. And right now, we’re all swimming in them.”

To be sure, Exit Wounds is populated by scarred souls that “used to rumble, used to roar,” of “nobodies drinking flat beer,” and those who’ve been “abandoned and locked out and pressed to the fire.” Throughout, Dylan’s lyrics are specked with images of spears and swords and battle-worn flags being raised, of wayward buses and battered ships, riderless horses and lost planes.

Of course, ask Dylan what these songs are about, and, well, like most practiced songwriters, he’s not going to tell you. “I'm always a little cautious when people ask that,” he says. “Not because it demystifies the songs, but more because I think it's belittling to the listener to have to be ‘told.’ I usually find that if you have to do that for someone, you probably didn't hit your mark.”

That said, Dylan will at least acknowledge that the tracks on Exit Wounds reflect the tumultuous times in which they were written. “The climate affects how you feel, which affects how you're writing songs, even if you’re not writing specifically about current events.” He turns to the late John Prine to illustrate his point. “If we still had John Prine, I don't think he'd be writing songs specifically about current affairs, but he'd probably be writing songs about characters affected by current affairs. I think that's mostly what I do.”

As far as Exit Wounds, Dylan continues, “I’m the same writer I’ve always been – I was just also writing during a time when the world felt like it was falling apart. That changes the way you address even the simplest things, because you have panic in your mind all the time. You have anxiety. And you also have hope. And it’s all in there.”                        

When it came to realizing these new songs on record, Dylan assembled a backing band of musical associates – “people that I've wanted to play with or that I have played with through the years” – and headed into the studio under the watchful eye of producer Butch Walker.            

As for what Butch brought to the sessions? Beyond his pedigree as an in-demand producer and first-rate singer-songwriter and musician, he’s also, Dylan says, “someone I’ve known a long time, and that was important to me. Because you go through a lot when you make records, to be honest. When you’re young, you're taught that if you don’t have conflict in the studio, then you're probably not doing anything good. But I don't believe that. And so it was more of a joyful experience making this record.”            

That joyful experience extended to Dylan’s interplay with his fellow musicians. “This was not the type of thing where it’s a rotating cast and you call a different drummer for each song, or you pull out the Rolodex and ring the local sessions guys,” Dylan says. “The record was made as a band – the five Wallflowers.”        

And to Dylan, a band, even one with a constantly shifting lineup, is a sacred thing. “I've always been a believer in collaboration,” he says, “and no matter who I'm playing with I've always tried to include them very heavily. Otherwise, why would they be around? Because I do think bands, whether it’s a long standing group or just five people who are working together for that one stretch of time, make better rock ‘n’ roll records than solo artists.”

He laughs. “I mean, it's not 100 percent true, but it's usually true.”

At the end of the day, Dylan continues, “It’s just exciting to have guys playing in a room together. That's how you get the one plus one equals three factor, you know? That’s the magic.”

For Dylan, Exit Wounds is the next chapter in a career devoted to chasing – and capturing – that magic. “I came up in an era of great rock ‘n’ roll bands making great music, and it’s the way I always imagined I would do it one day,” he says.

“So that’s always been my vision with the Wallflowers – to be a great rock ‘n’ roll band. And I've worked on it for 30 years now and I still have a lot to say. It’s something I started a long time ago, and it’s far from finished.”

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

THE WALLFLOWERS

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Monday, August 21, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 17 at 10am HERE

$40.00 - $53.00 Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/21/2023 - 10:50 am

After over a decade of relentless touring and recording in all but complete obscurity, the Texas-bred quasi-collective suddenly found itself held up by the press and public as one of the major figures in the jazz world. But as the category names for all five of the band’s Grammy® awards would indicate (Best R&B Performance in 2014, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2016, 2017, 2021, and 2023), Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band. It’s not a fusion band, and it’s definitely not a jam band. It’s probably best to take Nate Chinen of the New York Times’ advice, as stated in an online discussion about the group, to “take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.”

Snarky Puppy is a collective of sorts with as many as 20 members in regular rotation. At its core, the band represents the convergence of both black and white American music culture with various accents from around the world. Japan, Argentina, Canada and the United Kingdom all have representation in the group’s membership. But more than the cultural diversity of the individual players, the defining characteristic of Snarky Puppy’s music is the joy of performing together in the perpetual push to grow creatively.

Their latest Grammy® winning album - Empire Central - was released in September 2022.  Its sound is big and bold, chill and laid back, rooted in its native culture while reaching outward, forward bound. With 16 new compositions, the group looks fondly at where it’s come from, confident in the polished power from which its members continue to build the unique Snarky Puppy sound.

The sound now rises like a skyscraper from a 21st century orchestra comprising three guitarists, four keyboardists, two brass, two reeds, a violinist, multiple percussionists and drummers and the accomplished, yet modest, Michael League keeping it all together with his bass.

“Our soundscape has expanded dramatically over the years” says League. “When the band started, we were jazzier, brainy and music oriented. Moving into the Dallas scene we became groovier, more emotional, deeper in a sense. We focused more on communicating a clear message, understandable to a listener without dumbing things down”.  

 “Snarky Puppy has always been a band that prioritizes the sound of music” says League. “On this record the songs ended up being a lot more direct and funkier than those on our previous records.  I think it reflects the many moods of the city’s scene”. “Our rule is that it can’t sound like it sounded before” he continues, “the music has to feel like it’s moving somewhere”

And moving somewhere it most definitely is. Empire Central shouts from the rooftops how far Snarky Puppy have come since ten friends got together at the University of North Texas in 2004.  It also raises the question – where will Snarky Puppy go next? For Snarky Puppy fans, the answer to this question is a very exciting prospect.

SNARKY PUPPY

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 24 at 10am HERE

$46.50 - $59.50 Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/21/2023 - 10:55 am

What began as a casual jam session over a decade ago has become one of today’s leaders in the Americana/Bluegrass music world. The venerable Rounder Records immediately signed the band and released their eponymous debut in 2008 that scored their first GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group w/ Vocal for the song Blue Side Of The Mountain. Again in 2010, The SteelDriver’s sophomore effort “Reckless”, received two more nods for Best Bluegrass Album and Best Country Performance by a Duo of Group with Vocal, courtesy of the universally popular hit Where Rainbows Never Die.

The group’s star continued to rise with the release “Hammer Down” that debuted at #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass Charts. Their accomplishments continued with the highly anticipated 2015 “The Muscle Shoals Recordings” that also won a GRAMMY for Best Bluegrass Album, as well as three IBMA nominations for Album, Song, Songwriter (Tammy Rogers) and Liner Notes (Peter Cooper) of the Year honors.

In 2018 the group made Grand Ole Opry history as the quintet was joined by superstars John Prine and Bill Murray on the revered stage to perform.  Other accolades include a cameo in the Murray flick “Get Low,” music placement in various TV and movies including the popular drama “Yellowstone,” and specially recordings with the military group Six String Soldiers.

In 2020, Tammy Rogers, Michael Fleming, Richard Bailey, Brent Truitt and Kelvin Damrell (his first project as lead vocals) released the chart-topping “Bad For You” to both industry and media aplomb.

2021 brought the latest member on board, lead singer Matt Dame.

The quintet tours an average of 75 dates annually while continuing to bring world-class music to people.

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

THE STEELDRIVERS

WITH TROUBADOUR BLUE

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 24 at 10am HERE

$35.00 - $48.00 General Admission and Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/21/2023 - 11:02 am

Released in 1989, Indigo Girls' eponymous major label debut sold over two million copies under the power of singles “Closer to Fine” and “Kid Fears” and turned Indigo Girls into one of the most successful folk duos in history. Over a thirty-five-year career that began in clubs around their native Atlanta, Georgia, the multi-Grammy-winning duo of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray has recorded sixteen studio albums, sold over 15 million records, and built a dedicated, enduring following across the globe. Rolling Stone describes them as the “ideal duet partners.” Committed and uncompromising activists, they work on issues like immigration reform (El Refugio), LGBTQ advocacy, education (Imagination Library), death penalty reform, and Native American rights. They are co-founders of Honor the Earth, a non-profit dedicated to the survival of sustainable Native communities, Indigenous environmental justice, and green energy solutions.

Their latest record, Look Long is a stirring and eclectic collection of songs that finds the duo of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers reunited in the studio with their strongest backing band to date. “We joke about being old, but what is old when it comes to music? We’re still a bar band at heart,” says Saliers. “While our lyrics and writing approach may change, our passion for music feels the same as it did when we were 25-years-old.” “As time has gone on, our audience has become more expansive and diverse, giving me a sense of joy,” she adds. To hear those collective voices raise into one, singing along and overpowering the band itself, one realizes the importance Indigo Girls’ music has in this moment. In our often-terrifying present, we are all in search of a daily refuge, a stolen hour or two, to engage with something that brings us joy, perspective, or maybe just calm. As one bar band once put it, “We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains…we go to the Bible, we go through the work out.” For millions, they go to the Indigo Girls. On Look Long they’ll find a creative partnership certain of its bearings, forging a way forward.

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

INDIGO GIRLS

WITH FULL BAND

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 24 at 10am HERE

$58.00 - $121.00 General Admission and Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 03/21/2023 - 3:46 pm

Many veteran bands trade on nostalgia, on replication of past glories, and on recycled emotions from younger, more carefree days.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band trades on a mix of reimagined classics and compelling newer works.  The group formed in 1966 as a Long Beach, California jug band, scored its first charting single  in 1967, and embarked on a self-propelled ride through folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll, pop, blue grass, and the amalgam now known as “Americana.” The first major hit came in 1971 with the  epic “Mr. Bojangles,” which, along with insistent support from banjo master Earl Scruggs,  opened doors in Nashville. Behind those doors were Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson,  Mother Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, and others who would collaborate on a multi-artist,  multi-generational, three-disc 1972 masterpiece: Will the Circle Be Unbroken went triple Plat inum, spawned two later volumes, and wound up in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Was this a cutting-edge combo or a group of revivalists? Was the goal rebellion or musical  piety? Yes, to all these things. In the 1980s, the Dirt Band reeled off 15 straight Top 10 country  hits, including chart-toppers “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream),” “Modern Day  Romance,” and “Fishin’ in the Dark (co-written by Jim Photoglo, who would join the band in  the second decade of the new century). 1989 brought a second Circle album, this one featuring  singer-songwriter talents including John Prine, Rosanne Cash, and John Hiatt and garnering  two Grammy awards for the band (it later won another, for a collaboration with Earl Scruggs  and other fine folks). Circle II also won the Country Music Association’s Album of the Year  prize. Circle III was released in 2003, featuring collaborations with Johnny Cash, Dwight  Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal, and more.

Throughout the group’s lifetime, personnel has changed, with each change resulting in positive  steps forward, new ways of playing the old songs, and renewed enthusiasm for writing and  recording fresh material. The latest Dirt Band lineup is expanded to six members for the first  time since 1968. Today’s group consists of founding member Jeff Hanna, harp master Jimmie  Fadden (who joined in 1966), and soulful-voiced Bob Carpenter, who has more than 40 years of  service in the ensemble. Those veterans are now joined by singer-songwriter-bass man Jim  Photoglo, fiddle and mandolin wizard Ross Holmes, and Hanna’s son, the preternaturally tal ented singer and guitarist Jaime Hanna.

Blood harmony, thrilling instrumental flights, undeniable stage chemistry … these things are  part of each Dirt Band show, just as they are part of Dirt Does Dylan, the first recording from  the reconfigured, six-strong group. Produced by Ray Kennedy and Jeff Hanna, it’s a remark able ride through some of the most impactful songs of the past century, penned by Bob Dylan and taken for a blue highway spin by a great American band, with help from genius-level con temporary artists like Jason Isbell and The War and Treaty.

A Dirt Band show is unlike any other. For legions of fans, it’s less about the memories than the  moment, crisp as an Autumn apple and rich as a royal flush.

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Monday, July 17, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 24 at 10am HERE

$45.00 - $58.00 General Admission and Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Wed, 03/29/2023 - 6:28 am

With one foot in the real world and the other in a charmed dimension of his own making, Amos Lee creates the rare kind of music that’s emotionally raw yet touched with a certain magical quality. On his eighth album Dreamland, the Philadelphia-born singer/songwriter intimately documents his real-world struggles (alienation, anxiety, loneliness, despair), an outpouring born from deliberate and often painful self-examination. “For most of my life I’ve walked into rooms thinking, ‘I don’t belong here,’” says Lee. “I’ve come to the realization that I’m too comfortable as an isolated person, and I want to reach out more. This record came from questioning my connections to other people, to myself, to my past and to the future.”    

In the spirit of fostering connection, Lee made Dreamland in close collaboration with L.A.-based producer Christian “Leggy” Langdon (Banks, Meg Myers). “I met with Leggy, who I really didn’t know anything about, and before we even started to work we had a very open and vulnerable conversation about what was going on in our lives,” he recalls. “So much of what I do is solitary work, and it felt good to find someone I could connect with—sort of like, ‘I’m a lonely kid, and I wanna play.’” Thanks to that palpable sense of playfulness, Dreamland embodies an unpredictable and endlessly imaginative sound—a prime showcase for Lee’s warmly commanding voice and soul-baring songwriting.

The very first song that Lee and Langdon created together, “Hold You” set the standard for Dreamland’s open-hearted confession. With its delicate convergence of so many exquisite sonic details—luminous guitar tones, ethereal textures, tender toy-piano melodies—the track finds Lee looking inward and uncovering a deep urge to provide comfort and solace. “Especially if you’ve grown up with a less-than-appealing inner voice, you have to start with yourself,” he notes.

On “Worry No More”—the mantra-like lead single to Dreamland—Lee shares his hard-won insight into riding out anxiety. “I’ve had a lot of episodes with anxiety in my life and now I feel much more equipped to handle them, partly because my family and friends have always been so supportive of me,” he says. “Music has also been so healing for me, and helped me to find a place in my mind that isn’t purely controlled by fear.” To that end, “Worry No More” gently exalts music’s power to brighten our perspective, with the song’s narrator slipping into a headphone-induced reverie as they wander a broken world (“I’m listening to the sounds of Miles/Spanish sketches, playground smiles/Crowded streets and empty vials/For all to share”).

All throughout Dreamland, Lee embraces an unfettered honesty, repeatedly shedding light on the darkest corners of his psyche. On “Into the Clearing,” for instance, the album takes on a moody intensity as Lee speaks to a desire for obliteration. “There’s always a longing to be one with the universe, to be one with nature, to be one with the sky,” he says. “And sometimes the only way you can be with the sky is to be smoke.” A powerfully uplifting track with a gospel-like energy, “See the Light” evokes a fierce resolve to hold tight to hope (“Since I know I’m going to be singing these songs over and over, I like to infuse them with helpful messages to myself,” Lee says). With its soulful piano work and soaring string arrangement, “Seeing Ghosts” reflects on anxiety’s insidious ability to warp our perception. “For a lot of people with anxiety disorders, there’s this fog that sets in, where your brain becomes overwhelmed and you disconnect,” says Lee. “I’ve definitely seen ghosts my whole life.” In a striking tonal shift, Lee then delivers one of Dreamland’s most euphoric moments on “Shoulda Known Better,” a radiant piece of R&B-pop fueled by his dreamy falsetto. “That song’s looking at the messy side of life,” he says. “It’s saying, ‘I was dumb, I shouldn’t have done that, but we had a lot of fun. I don’t regret it at all.’”

In the making of Dreamland, Lee found his songwriting indelibly informed by his recent reading of Johann Hari’s 2018 book Lost Connections. “It’s about depression, which I have a pretty deep history with, and how our society and our generation looks at mental health and healing in terms of medication rather than thinking about our personal relationship to the people and the world around us,” he says. And with the release of Dreamland, Lee hopes that his songs might inspire others to live more fully and free of fear. “Over the course of my life I’ve come to understand that music is my bridge to other people,” he says. “I have no idea what the waters are like below that bridge—it might be lava for all I know—but music allows me to float over the whole thing and connect. To me that’s the whole point of why we do this: to give people something to listen to and be enveloped by the love of another human being, and just be reminded that humanity is beautiful.”

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS: MY IDEAL

AMOS LEE

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, March 31 at 10am HERE

$55.00 - $103.00 General Admission & Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Fri, 03/31/2023 - 11:51 am

Andrew Bird announces more than a dozen new North American dates on his upcoming Inside Problems tour. Beginning with a headline set at Big Ears Festival this Friday, the cross-country run has now been extended from spring to summer, including a stop in Los Angeles, plus several amphitheaters throughout the West Coast, multiple shows in Canada, a return to his native Illinois and more with support from Uwade. Before then, Bird will also throw out the first pitch at the Cleveland Guardians vs Seattle Mariners baseball game on April 8th. Find the full list below and tickets here, on-sale this Friday, March 31st at 10am local time, with pre-sales beginning at 10am local on Wednesday

Following a year that saw him perform the music of his latest album Inside Problems at sold-out venues like Red Rocks, LA’s Greek Theatre, NYC’s Pier 17 and Chicago’s Salt Shed, in addition to appearances on CBS Saturday, NPR’s Tiny Desk and Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me, Andrew Bird has begun 2023 with another busy streak that’s brought his music to brand new places. His song “Night’s Falling” soundtracked the emotional final scene of Ted Lasso’s newest episode last week, expanding a growing list of TV and film credits that spans recent scores for Judd Apatow’s The Bubble and Peabody-nominated PBS documentary Storm Lake, as well as a professional acting debut in Fargo on FX, and more. Stream “Night’s Falling” in Apple Music’s official Ted Lasso Season 3 playlist here.

On the heels of international tour dates in the UK and Australia earlier this month and last, Andrew Bird has also shared a new solo set of “Make a Picture,” “Never Fall Apart” and “Sisyphus” for The Independent. Watch it here, and check out a moving new music video for “Never Fall Apart,” starring prominent Anishinaabe musician Keith Secola and Geezis Humphrey: https://found.ee/AB_NeverFallApart

Alongside the kickoff of his North American tour this week, Andrew Bird celebrates the physical release of “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” a reimagining of Emily Dickinson’s classic poem featuring Phoebe Bridgers. Pre-order the limited edition 7” vinyl, available at retail this Friday, March 31st: https://linktr.ee/andrewbird

Andrew Bird Tour Dates
3/30 - Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel*
3/31 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival
4/1 - Charleston, SC - Charleston Music Hall*
4/3 - Richmond, VA - The National*
4/4 - Louisville, KY - Paristown Hall* %
4/5 - Madison, WI - The Sylvee*
4/7 - Ann Arbor, MI - Michigan Theater*
4/8 - Cleveland, OH - Agora Theatre*
4/9 - Toronto, ON - History* !
4/11 - Portland, ME - State Theatre* !
4/12 - Newark, NJ - Prudential Hall* !
4/13 - Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall* !
7/20 - Pioneertown, CA - Pappy and Harriets #
7/21 - Los Angeles, CA - TBA #
7/22 - Stanford, CA - Frost Amphitheater #
7/23 - Napa, CA - Blue Note Summer Sessions at Silverado #
7/25 - Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater #
7/26 - Vancouver, BC - The Centre for Performing Arts #
7/28 - Calgary, AB - TBA
7/30 - Evanston, IL - Out of SPACE #
8/1 - Bozeman, MT - The Elm #s
8/2 - Sandy, UT - Sandy Amphitheater #
8/3 - Beaver Creek, CO - Vilar Performing Arts Center #
8/4 - Boulder, CO - Chautauqua #
8/5 - Boulder, CO - Chautauqua #

*w/ Ted Poor
% w/ Joan Shelley
! w/ Madison Cunningham
# w/ Uwade

Tue, 04/04/2023 - 10:01 am

The journey of Los Lobos began in 1973, 50 years ago this year, when David Hidalgo (vocals, guitar, and pretty much anything with strings), Louie Perez (drums, vocals, guitar), Cesar Rosas (vocals, guitar), and Conrad Lozano (bass, vocals, guitarrón) earned their stripes playing revved-up versions of Mexican folk music in restaurants and at parties. The band evolved in the 1980s as it tapped into L.A.’s burgeoning punk and college rock scenes. They were soon sharing bills with bands like the Circle Jerks, Public Image Ltd. and the Blasters, whose saxophonist, Steve Berlin, would eventually leave the group to join Los Lobos in 1984.

Early on, Los Lobos enjoyed critical success, winning the Grammy® for Best Mexican-American Performance for “Anselma” from its 1983 EP …And a Time to Dance. A year later, the group released its full-length, major-label debut, How Will the Wolf Survive? Co-produced by Berlin and T Bone Burnett, the album was a college rock sensation that helped Los Lobos tie with Bruce Springsteen as Rolling Stone’s Artist of the Year.

A major turning point came in 1987 with the release of the Ritchie Valens biopic, La Bamba. The quintet’s cover of Valens’ signature song topped the charts in the U.S. and the U.K. Rather than capitalize on that massive commercial success, Los Lobos instead chose to record La Pistola y El Corazón, a tribute to Tejano and Mariachi music that won the 1989 Grammy® for Best Mexican-American Performance.

That kind of sharp artistic turn has become Los Lobos’ trademark, serving to both fuel the band’s creativity and keep its fans engaged. In 1992, that willingness to defy expectations led them to record Kiko, an adventurous album produced by Mitchell Froom that’s considered by many to be one the band’s very best.

Since then, Los Lobos has continued to deliver daring and diverse albums such as Colossal Head (1996), Good Morning Aztlán (2002), The Town and the City (2006), Tin Can Trust (2010) and Gates of Gold (2015). On top of that, the band’s live shows never disappoint, as documented on the recent concert recordings Live at the Fillmore (2005) and Disconnected in New York City (2013). Through the years, they’ve managed to keep things interesting with unexpected side trips like an album of Disney songs in 2009, along with countless contributions to tribute albums and film soundtracks. One of those – “Mariachi Suite” from the 1995 film Desperado – earned the band a Grammy® for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Los Lobos’ love letter to the city of Los Angeles as their album Native Sons (2021), returned the band to the Grammy winner’s circle with Best Americana Album of 2022. In 2023, Los Lobos celebrates its 50th anniversary as a band, a rare and impressive feat, as the band continues its great legacy.

Los Lobos has sold millions of records, won prestigious awards and made fans around the world. But perhaps its most lasting impact will be how well its music embodies the idea of America as a cultural melting pot. In it, styles like son jarocho, norteño, Tejano, folk, country, doo-wop, soul, R&B, rock ’n’ roll and punk all come together to create a new sound that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

About Ozomatli

If the city of Los Angeles had a soundtrack, it would be Ozomatli’s music. Since forming in 1995, the lineup’s collaborative, energetic blend of multi-cultural music and activism has earned the band three GRAMMYs®, four Hollywood Bowl shows, a TED Talk and much more. But more importantly, Ozo has inspired and energized listeners worldwide. Even at gigs in locales including Burma and Mongolia, Ozomatli’s messages and music, sung in both Spanish and English, need no translation. Circa 2022, Ozo’s new songs, stronger-than-ever brotherhood and the potent emotional impetus behind Marching On further cements the legacy begun with the band’s 1998 self-titled debut.

Like The Doors, X, Los Lobos, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and other L.A.-based artists who take cues from the city and also reflect and unearth its movements, Ozomatli and Marching On reaches from the curbs to the high-rises. With musician/producer David Garza (Fiona Apple, Sparta) producing in pre-pandemic 2020 at El Paso’s Sonic Ranch, Ozo were honored with esteemed musical guests who contributed to the 11-song album.

On “Fellas” Ozo is joined by J.J. Fad and Lisa Lisa. “We were working on a song that was almost like an ‘80s song with acoustic instruments,” explains Ulises Bella. “But also 808 [drum machine] music.” Uli had recently seen Lisa Lisa live—"such a great singer, tight band, so many hits!”—and a series of fortuitous social media interactions found Lisa Lisa and Uli in touch, resulting in her star turn on the track. Then, even though they hadn’t recorded in more than 30 years, influential ‘80s female freestylers J.J Fad (“Supersonic”) eagerly jumped on the chance to work with Ozo and Lisa Lisa on “Fellas.”

For “Mi Destino,” sung in both English and Spanish, Ozo were stoked to connect with B-Real, as Cypress Hill and Ozo had been on each other’s radars for decades. It was a DM that put B-Real in contact with Ozo. “And literally every step after that, the stars were aligned,” Uli says. “Unicorns were fucking dancing and somehow it all worked out and he got on ‘Mi Destino,’ and we also got Gaby Moreno on the track. It was definitely a deep kind of thing we’ve been needing and wanting and marinating on, and then it manifests.”

Of soulful Guatemalan singer-songwriter Moreno, guitarist Raúl Pacheco observes: “She just came up with this whole other kind of a style on it, really beautiful and spiritual.”

“It’s super-cool that we got really iconic, impactful women of that era and beyond on our record,” adds Uli.

The 11 songs are a unified blend of the members’ influences and ideas. Or, as founding members Jiro Yamaguchi and Uli explain: "You drive down Sunset Boulevard and turn off your stereo and roll down your windows and all the music that comes out of each and every different car, whether it's salsa, cumbia, merengue, Hip Hop, funk or whatever, it's that crazy blend that's going on between that cacophony of sound is Ozomatli, y'know?"

The Marching On journey was ideally suited for producer Garza, himself a musician familiar with Ozo’s Latin, hip hop, and rock music with salsa, jazz, funk, and world music influences. Being away from home allowed the band to focus tightly. “Sonic Ranch is an incredible location with four studios. You live on site, you are fed every day, so it’s totally geared toward whatever shows up in terms of creating music,” Raúl explains. “It was centering; just art- and music-making, us just trying to say ‘yes’ to David’s requests and our ideas. So, there’s a very unified sense to this album, even though we’re all so different, which you can also feel.”

Marching On features Uli’s lead vocal debut on the song “Mula.” “Part of the inspiration was us being right there next to the border and hearing all these stories from people who were working nearby and at the studio,” he recalls. “It was just crazy shit they've encountered, with the history of El Paso and how violent it can be, and the disappearance of women.” On the creepy noir story-song, Uli says he went for the “Chicano, Tom Waits-wise,” take on the tune. “’Mula’ is pretty dark and messed-up.”

While the basic tracks were all completed at Sonic Ranch, due to the pandemic, other parts of the record were completed remotely. Despite the often-terrifying uncertainty of the world during this time, ultimately Ozo were able to complete Marching On, which turned out to be an almost prescient song and album title.  As the lyrics to the track clarify: “Yeah we keep marching till the justice reigns / And the world sings the freedom’s song / Yeah we keep marching while the battle rages / As the new generations born / Till we right the wrongs.”

For a band who thrive on touring and connection, much of 2020 “felt bleak,” Ozo unable to share their musical and socio-political passions on tour. “We did a couple online concerts, but watching a show is not ever going to be the same as being at the show,” says Uli. “There's only so much you can party on your couch in your living room with your dog.”

Finishing Marching On was difficult emotionally and logistically, but Ozo rose to the task. Tracking some vocals at home, Raúl discovered, “I learned so much. I got better in that process because I'm being challenged.”

No matter the circumstances, Ozomatil are driven: Driven to make themselves, their music and the world a better place. And that begins at home—which, for Ozo, is music and lyrics. “The song is kind of like a sacred responsibility,” concludes Raúl. “It takes hard core passion to push whatever the song is to the best it could be. I take it very personally.”

Of the vividly stunning album cover for Marching On, Raúl explains, “This figure represents the origin of the human race, an earthly mother who over time continues to store, carry, and share collective knowledge. She shares this knowledge through many faces and many pairs of eyes, representing all the varying cultures of the world, they are all from the same body, the same source. This mother figure, like the human race, is choosing to continue to move forward, she compels us to keep Marching On and remember our collective connectedness.”

Ozomatli’s commitment to social justice is ongoing. Their 2019 single “Libertad,” with founding members Chali 2na (Jurassic 5) & Cut Chemist, was the first collaborative release together since Ozomatli’s 1998 debut album. It highlighted the struggle of Latin workers in the U.S. who sacrifice everything to help family on the other side of the border wall. Ozomati’s ongoing work in the world has not gone unnoticed. In 2008 the U.S. State Department appointed the band United States Cultural Ambassadors; in 2009 and 2010 they performed for President Barack Obama. And hometown honors came in 2013 when April 23 was deemed “Ozomatli Day” in perpetuity.

In some ways, Ozomatli’s raison d’etre is summed up in “Mi Destino’s” lyrics: “To put it plain and simple there’s no halt in the walk / Destined for future lessons unbelievable thoughts / We are the navigators and the journey the clock / Set all the gears in motion to pop.”

Ozomatli want everyone to join them, on the dance floor, in the mosh pit, in the trenches, just “one more” time, if they would, as they sing on Marching On’s fifth track: “De que estás agradecido / Cual es tu mission / Levántate con fuerza / Una vez más por favor.”

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

LOS LOBOS + OZOMATLI

CHAUTAUQUA 125TH BIRTHDAY BASH CONCERT

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Doors: 6:00 pm | Show: 7:00 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 7 at 10am HERE

$47.00 - $55.00 Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 04/04/2023 - 10:17 am

Acoustic guitarist Leo Kottke was born in Athens, Georgia, but left town after a year and a half. Raised in 12 different states, he absorbed a variety of musical influences as a child, flirting with both violin and trombone, before abandoning Stravinsky for the guitar at age 11.

After adding a love for the country-blues of Mississippi John Hurt to the music of John Phillip Sousa and Preston Epps, Kottke joined the Navy underage, to be underwater, and eventually lost some hearing shooting at lightbulbs in the Atlantic while serving on the USS Halfbeak, a diesel submarine.

Kottke had previously entered college at the U of Missouri, dropping out after a year to hitchhike across the country to South Carolina, then to New London and into the Navy, with his twelve string. "The trip was not something I enjoyed," he has said, "I was broke and met too many interesting people."

Discharged in 1964, he settled in the Twin Cities area and became a fixture at Minneapolis' Scholar Coffeehouse, which had been home to Bob Dylan and John Koerner. He issued his 1968 recording debut LP Twelve String Blues, recorded on a Viking quarter-inch tape recorder, for the Scholar's tiny Oblivion label. (The label released one other LP by The Langston Hughes Memorial Eclectic Jazz Band.)

After sending tapes to guitarist John Fahey, Kottke was signed to Fahey's Takoma label, releasing what has come to be called the Armadillo record. Fahey and his manager Denny Bruce soon secured a production deal for Kottke with Capitol Records.

Kottke's 1971 major-label debut, "Mudlark," positioned him somewhat uneasily in the singer/songwriter vein, despite his own wishes to remain an instrumental performer. Still, despite arguments with label heads as well as with Bruce, Kottke flourished during his tenure on Capitol, as records like 1972's "Greenhouse" and 1973's live "My Feet Are Smiling" and "Ice Water" found him branching out with guest musicians and honing his guitar technique.

With 1975's Chewing Pine, Kottke reached the U.S. Top 30 for the second time; he also gained an international following thanks to his continuing tours in Europe and Australia.

His collaboration with Phish bassist Mike Gordon, "Clone," caught audiences' attention in 2002. Kottke and Gordon followed with a recording in the Bahamas called "Sixty Six Steps," produced by Leo's old friend and Prince producer David Z.

Kottke has been awarded two Grammy nominations; a Doctorate in Music Performance by the Peck School of Music at the U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; and a Certificate of Significant Achievement in Not Playing the Trombone from the U of Texas at Brownsville with Texas Southmost College.

About Julian Lage

Julian Lage

Guitarist Julian Lage expands his horizons on View With A Room, a collection of 10 compelling original compositions that marks his second release for Blue Note Records. Having established a home base with his brilliant and deeply attuned trio of bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King—most recently heard on the guitarist’s acclaimed 2021 Blue Note debut Squint—Lage casts his gaze outward to discover new orchestrational possibilities with the addition of six-string icon Bill Frisell, who adds his inimitable voice to this absolutely stunning album.

Hailed as one of the most prodigious guitarists of his generation and “highest category of improvising musicians" (New Yorker), Julian Lage has spent more than a decade searching through the myriad strains of American musical history via impeccable technique, free association and a spirit of infinite possibility. The California-born New York-based musician boasts a prolific resume on his own accord in addition to collaborating with Gary Burton and John Zorn, as well as duo projects with Nels Cline, Chris Eldridge and Fred Hersch, among others.

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

LEO KOTTKE + JULIAN LAGE

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Friday, August 18, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 7 at 10am HERE

$35.00 - $48.00 Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 04/18/2023 - 10:11 am

Now in the seventh decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: at the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960's. As a member of the Miles Davis Quintet that pioneered a groundbreaking sound in jazz, he also developed new approaches on his own recordings, followed by his work in the 70s -- with record-breaking albums such as "Headhunters" -- that combined electric jazz with funk and rock in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music. "Rockit" and "Future Shock" marked Hancock's foray into electronic dance sounds; during the same period he also continued to work in an acoustic setting with V.S.O.P.

Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year for "River: The Joni Letters," and two 2011 Grammy Awards for the globally collaborative CD, "The Imagine Project."

Hancock serves as Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and as Institute Chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. In 2011 Hancock was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and in December of 2013, received a Kennedy Center Honor. His memoirs, Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, were published by Viking in 2014, and in February 2016 he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Hancock is currently in the studio at work on a new album.

2 ENTERTAINMENT & 97.3 KBCO PRESENT

HERBIE HANCOCK

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 21 at 10am HERE

$57.00 - $128.00 General Admission & Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Thu, 04/20/2023 - 4:44 pm

The Wood Brothers have learned to trust their hearts. For the better part of two decades, they've cemented their reputation as freethinking songwriters, road warriors, and community builders, creating a catalog of diverse music and a loyal audience who've grown alongside them through the years. That evolution continues with Heart is the Hero, the band's eighth studio album. Recorded analog to 16-track tape, this latest effort finds its three creators embracing the chemistry of their acclaimed live shows by capturing their performances in real-time direct from the studio floor with nary a computer in sight. An acoustic-driven album that electrifies, Heart is the Hero is stocked with songs that target not only the heart, but the head and hips, too.

"We love records that come from the era of less tracks and more care," explains co-founder Oliver Wood. "When you use a computer during the tracking process, you have an infinite number of tracks at your disposal, which implies that nothing is permanent, and everything can be fixed. Tape gives you limitations that force you to be creative and intentional. You don't look at the music on a screen; you listen to it, and you learn to focus on the feeling of the performance."

Throughout Heart Is The Hero, those performances are matched by the visceral storytelling and songwriting chops that have turned The Wood Brothers into Grammy-nominated leaders of American roots music, even as their music reaches far beyond the genre's borders. The strippeddown swagger of "Pilgrim" underscores Oliver's reminder to slow down and experience each moment as an interactive observer, rather than a passive tourist. A similar theme anchors "Between the Beats," where Oliver draws upon a meditation technique -- maintaining one's focus on the space between heartbeats -- to reach a new level of presence. The gentle sway of country soul gem "Rollin' On," featuring horns by Matt Glassmeyer and Roy Agee, expounds on the timehonored tradition of love as the guiding light through darkness, while "Mean Man World" finds Chris Wood singing about his responsibilities as a father whose young daughter is poised to inherit an uncertain future. "Line Those Pockets" is a universal call for mercy and understanding over materialism. "Everybody's just trying to be happy, so put your money away; line those pockets with grace," the band sings in three-part harmony during the song's chorus, which emphasizes compassion over cash as the world's true currency. Together, these songs offer a snapshot of a spirited, independent-minded group at the peak of its powers, always pushing forward and seeking to evolve beyond what's come before.

"There's still acoustic guitar, upright bass, and percussion on this album -- things people use all the time -- but we're always thinking, 'How can we make this sound like us, but not like something we've already done?'" Oliver says. "Sometimes, the only way to do that is to get weird."

That sense of exploration pumps its way through Heart is the Hero like lifeblood. Arriving on the heels of 2019's Live at The Fillmore, 2020's Kingdom In My Mind, and Oliver Wood's solo album Always Smilin' -- all of which were released on Honey Jar Records, the band's independent label -- Heart is the Hero is bold, bright, and singularly creative, a fully realized collective effort ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps that's to be expected from a group whose willingness to experiment has earned acclaim from Rolling Stone and NPR, as well as an annual touring schedule of sold-out music halls and theaters on both sides of the Atlantic. Ask The Wood Brothers, though, and they'll tell you to expect the unexpected.

"We are never satisfied if we are not searching for new musical recipes," says Jano Rix, nodding to the uncharted territory that Heart is the Hero covers. Chris Wood agrees, adding, "We are one of those bands that isn't easily categorized. We know what our strengths are, but we can't help but push the envelope, as well. It's too much fun."

THE WOOD BROTHERS

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, April 21 at 10am HERE

$40.00 - $53.00 General Admission & Reserved Seating tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 05/16/2023 - 3:12 pm

As world travelers for nearly two decades, Rising Appalachia have merged multiple global music influences with their own southern roots to create the inviting new folk album, Leylines. Remarkably the band has built its legion of listeners independently -- a self-made success story that has led to major festival appearances and sold-out shows at venues across the country.

Founded by sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, the band established an international fan base due to relentless touring, tireless activism, and no small degree of stubborn independence. However, for the first time, they opted to bring in a producer for the new album, teaming up with the legendary Joe Henry on the sessions. These were also their first recording sessions outside of the South. For 10 days, all six band members lived and recorded in a castle-like studio in Marin County, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. As a result, a sense of unity and immediacy can be heard throughout their seventh album, Leylines.

“As far as recording goes, we’re open creatively, but we’ve often preferred elements of live recording. I mean, we’re folk musicians at our core,” Leah explains. “The experience of playing music together in one room, looking at each other, is the bedrock of what we do and how we’ve grown up with music. I think Joe very much felt that way as well. He was very clear at the beginning that he was going to encourage us to have as many element of a live recording as possible.”

Although Leah and Chloe Smith consider their voices as their primary instrument, Leah also plays banjo and bodhran on the album, while Chloe plays guitar, fiddle, and banjo. They are joined on Leylines by longtime members David Brown (stand-up bass, baritone guitar) and Biko Casini (world percussion, n’goni), as well as two new members: West African musician Arouna Diarra (n’goni, talking drum) and Irish musician Duncan Wickel (fiddle, cello). The sonic textures of these two cultures are woven into Leylines, enhancing the stunning blend of folk, world, and urban music that has become Rising Appalachia’s calling card.

“Our songwriting ties into those traditions as well,” Chloe says. “With some of our original songs, it’s a reflection of the times. We’re folk singers and we consider this a folk album, so there’s a lot in there. There’s word of politics, of being women in the music industry, as well as a lot about our lives on the road.”

Indeed, Rising Appalachia has toured British Columbia by sailboat, traversed the U.S. and Europe by train, and engaged in immersive cultural exchange programs in Bulgaria, Ireland, Southern Italy, Central and South America – not to mention the countless miles in a van. Tour highlights include: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco; Music Hall Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York; Boulder Theatre in Boulder, Colorado; and the Showbox in Seattle, Washington. The band consistently sells between 400 and 1500 tickets wherever they play, a testament to their loyal fan base.

Leah and Chloe grew up in urban Atlanta as the city’s hip hop scene began to flourish. They absorbed those rhythms through the music they heard at school, then traveled with their family to fiddle camps all across the Southeast on the weekends. The young girls weren’t all that interested in the old-time playing, but their parents were incredibly devout in their study and practice of Appalachian music.

After high school, Leah decided to postpone college and travel internationally. Feeling homesick while living in Southern Mexico, she looked for a connection to her past and taught herself how to play banjo. “I realized that I wanted something from home that I could share, something that would tell people a bit more of the story of where I came from, other than the news,” she recalls.

A few years later, when Chloe came to visit her abroad, Leah offered some clawhammer banjo lessons. They didn’t necessarily realize it at the time but a musical partnership had been established. Upon their return to the United States, they recorded an album, which they considered an art project, to sell whenever they sang at farmer’s markets. They printed 500 copies, figuring that would last them a lifetime. However, when a local college professor heard them singing at a Christmas party, he booked them as part of a Celtic holiday concert in Atlanta. After two performances, every CD had been sold.

Surprised and overwhelmed, they mulled over a career as full-time musicians, then realized that performing could be just one component of a greater overall vision – one that includes advocating for social justice, racial justice, environmental justice, and Indigenous rights.

“We’re able to filter in so many of our passions into this project,” Chloe says. “We do a lot of activism work. We do a lot of outreach. Leah is a visual artist and she can funnel her visual eye into the project. I love to write, so that comes in. There’s a big container and canvas for our life’s work here. Music is part of it, but there are a lot of other creative vehicles that are driving Rising Appalachia.”

Special guests on Leylines include folk hero Ani DiFranco, soulful songwriter Trevor Hall, and jazz trumpeter Maurice Turner. The album title alludes to the concept of invisible lines believed to stretch around the world between sacred spaces, bonded by a spiritual and magnetic presence. That deep sense of connection is key to understanding Rising Appalachia as a whole.

“Rising Appalachia has come out of this idea that we can take these traditions of southern music – that we’ve been born and raised with – and we can rise out of them, creating all these different bridges between cultures and stories to make them feel alive.” Leah says. “Our music has its foundation in heritage and tradition, but we’re creating a music that also feels reflective of the times right now. That’s always been our work.”

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

RISING APPALACHIA

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale Friday, May 19 at 10am HERE

$30.00 - $43.00 Reserved tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 01/30/2024 - 10:51 am

The first time banjo legend Béla Fleck, tabla master Zakir Hussain, and double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer got together to make an album, it was to write, not to play.

When Fleck and Meyer were looking for a third partner for a triple concerto they had been commissioned to write to mark the opening of Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, they thought of Hussain, who was quite interested in orchestral writing. “We thought we could learn a whole lot from this guy!” says Béla. The result was The Melody of Rhythm (2009), recorded with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin.

It wasn’t until the three began touring to promote the album that the trio’s true potential became apparent. Although each had a base in a different musical realm — bluegrass for Fleck, Indian classical music for Hussain, and Western classical music for Meyer — they shared a gift for improvisation as well as an ability to reach across musical genres as casually as neighbors might chat over a backyard fence.” When we are performing on stage, in composing mode or creating mode, we are basically having a conversation,” says Hussain. “So the music emerges as we speak.”

Hence As We Speak, an album that not only showcases the group’s breathtaking abilities as instrumentalists, but underscores the wide range of musical influences at their command. Across a dozen tracks, the group glides easily between the cerebral complexity of Indian rhythm and the gut-level groove of a funky bass line, sounding equally at home with the rigors of raga.

Adding to that magic is Rakesh Chaurasia, who plays bansuri, an Indian bamboo flute. When the trio was touring India, Hussain — who knew Rakesh through his uncle, Indian flute legend Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia — invited the younger flautist to sit in, and the chemistry was immediately apparent. “I think we wanted to see if we could do something a little more organic with just a small group,” says Meyer. “And to have somebody who plays as beautifully as Rakesh join us really opened it up to a more lyrical and melodic situation.”

“What I think is good about this quartet is that everybody has to stretch in the direction of the other people,” adds Fleck. “To me, a collaboration where nobody changes is not a collaboration. It's a mashup. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I like a collaboration where I have to learn a bunch of new things from the other people. And in this case, I'm learning like crazy.”

Béla Fleck

Few musicians in any category seem as uncategorizable as Béla Fleck. After initially making his mark with the progressive bluegrass group New Grass Revival, Fleck proceeded to take his instrument, as New York Times critic Jon Pareles noted, “to some very unlikely places.” He formed the Flecktones, a groundbreaking group whose repertoire ranged from fusion to Bach; the group celebrates its 46th anniversary this year. In addition, he has played jazz with Chick Corea, American roots with his partner, banjoist Abigail Washburn, written concertos for banjo and orchestra, and created a documentary film and album, Throw Down Your Heart, that examined the banjo’s African roots. Along the way, he has won 16 Grammys across 10 categories.  

Zakir Hussain

The pre-eminent classical tabla virtuoso of our time, Zakir Hussain is appreciated as one of the world’s most esteemed and influential musicians, one whose mastery of his percussion instrument has taken it to a new level, transcending cultures and national borders. A child prodigy, accompanying India’s greatest musicians and dancers from his early years, and touring internationally while still in his teens, Zakir has been at the helm of many genre-defying collaborations including Shakti, Remember Shakti, Masters of Percussion, Diga, Tabla Beat Science, CrossCurrents, Sangam and Grammy-award winners Planet Drum and Global Drum Project. A revered composer and educator, Zakir is the recipient of countless honors, most recently the 2022 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, the 2022 Aga Khan Music Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in January, 2023, the title of Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award.

Edgar Meyer

Aptly described by The New Yorker as “the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history of his instrument,” double bassist and composer Edgar Meyer is at home in a broad spectrum of musical styles. A MacArthur Fellow and Avery Fisher Prize winner, he is eminently at home within classical music, both performing traditional works and also his significant catalog of original solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces. His 30-year relationship with Yo-Yo Ma has yielded seven recordings together, and his upcoming projects include a duo recording with jazz bassist Christian McBride and a recording of all four of his concertos with the Knights and the Scottish Ensemble, produced by Chis Thile.

Rakesh Chaurasia

Like Zakir Hussain, Rakesh Chaurasia comes from Indian classical music royalty. His uncle, Pandit Hariprasad Chaursia, is widely considered the greatest bansuri player in India, and Rakesh — who started playing at age five — is deemed his most brilliant student. Not only has he mastered the techniques of Indian classical music, he has developed additional techniques allowing him to venture into other styles of playing, particularly with his crossover band Rakesh and Friends. A composer as well as flautist, he has written and performed on numerous Indian movie soundtracks, and in 2007 was awarded the Indian Music Academy Award.

BÉLA FLECK, ZAKIR HUSSAIN, EDGAR MEYER FEAT. RAKESH CHAURASIA: AS WE SPEAK

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, February 2nd at 10am HERE

$53.00 - $63.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 01/30/2024 - 10:55 am

Legendary artist Graham Nash, as a founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash, is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. He has seen rock history unfold at some of its seminal moments – from the launch of the British Invasion to the birth of the Laurel Canyon movement a year later. An extraordinary Grammy Award® winning renaissance artist – and self-described “simple man” – Nash was inducted twice into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for his work with CSN and his work as a solo artist.

Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of our lives for nearly six decades.

Nash’s remarkable body of work began with his contributions to the Hollies opus from 1964 to ’68, including “Stop Stop Stop,” and “On A Carousel,” among others.

The classic union of Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) yielded songs that are lightning rods embedded in our DNA, starting with Nash’s “Marrakesh Express,” “Pre-Road Downs” and “Lady of the Island,” from the first Crosby, Stills & Nash LP and his iconic “Teach Your Children” and “Our House” from CSNY’s Déjà Vu.

Nash’s career as a solo artist took flight in 1971, beginning with two landmark albums, Songs For Beginners and Wild Tales which further showcased the depths of his abilities as a singer and songwriter, yielding such favorites as “Chicago/We Can Change the World” and “Military Madness”. His latest effort, “Now”, was released worldwide in May 2023.

Graham Nash will be joined on stage by Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), Adam Minkoff (bass, drums, and vocals), and Zach Djanikian (guitars and vocals), performing favorites from across his sixty-year career.

Z2 ENTERTAINMENT & 97.3 KBCO PRESENT

GRAHAM NASH

MORE EVENINGS OF SONGS AND STORIES

CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Doors: 6:30 pm | Show: 7:30 pm

Tickets on sale on Friday, February 2 at 10am HERE

$50.00 - $100.00 tickets plus applicable service fees

All Ages

Tue, 02/06/2024 - 10:03 am

Z2 Entertainment in collaboration with 97.3 KBCO is thrilled to announce an unforgettable night of music and unity featuring the globally celebrated Michael Franti & Spearhead. Join us at the Chautauqua Auditorium on Saturday, June 1, 2024, for an acoustic evening that promises to be a soul-stirring experience for all ages.

Doors open at 6:30 PM with the show starting at 7:30 PM. Ticket prices range from $60.00 to $103.00, plus applicable service fees. Secure your spot to witness the magic live by purchasing tickets starting Friday, February 9, at 10 AM through Z2 Entertainment's website.

Michael Franti, a musician, activist, and award-winning filmmaker, is revered for his high-energy performances, uplifting music, and global philanthropy. With a career spanning over decades, Franti has touched hearts worldwide, earning three Billboard No. 1’s and numerous other accolades. His latest, the 13th studio album "Big Big Love," showcases 17 tracks that emphasize his enduring message of tenacity, inclusiveness, and optimism.

The Togetherness Tour 2024 marks a significant chapter in Franti & Spearhead's journey, bringing their dynamic presence and the spirit of soulrock to fans across North America. The tour features a special stop at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre and spans over 60 dates through the summer, starting with the Tortuga Festival in Fort Lauderdale on April 6th.

When not touring, Franti resides in Bali, where he owns Soulshine Bali, a boutique hotel that promotes joy through wellness and music. He is also the founder of Do It For The Love, a non-profit that has granted over 3,500 wishes for those facing life-threatening illnesses, veterans, and children with severe challenges, impacting over 15,000 people to date.

Don’t miss the chance to experience the uplifting and connecting power of Michael Franti & Spearhead's music. VIP Packages are available for an enhanced concert experience; details can be found at michaelfranti.com.

Tue, 02/20/2024 - 9:02 am

Z2 Entertainment, in partnership with 97.3 KBCO, is thrilled to announce an exclusive musical experience with the acclaimed singer-songwriter Ryan Adams. Set to enchant music lovers with his mesmerizing solo performance, the event will take place at the historic Chautauqua Auditorium on Friday, August 9, and Saturday, August 10, 2024.

Event Details:

    Artist: Ryan Adams: Solo 2024
    Venue: Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, CO
    Dates: Friday, August 9, 2024, and Saturday, August 10, 2024
    Doors Open: 6:00 pm
    Show Starts: 7:00 pm

Tickets:

Tickets for this must-see event will go on sale on Friday, February 23, at 10:00 am. Prices range from $52.00 to $90.00 for General Admission Seated and Reserved tickets, plus applicable service fees. Secure your tickets by visiting HERE.

VIP Experience:

A limited number of VIP packages will be available, offering fans a unique opportunity to experience the show in a special way. Details on the VIP package contents and purchase options will be announced shortly.

A Show for All Ages:

This event is open to music fans of all ages, making it a perfect evening out for families, friends, and solo adventurers alike.

About Ryan Adams:

Ryan Adams is a celebrated musician known for his poignant lyrics and eclectic blend of rock, country, and folk music. With a career spanning over two decades, Adams has earned a dedicated following and critical acclaim for his heartfelt performances and prolific songwriting.

Tue, 02/27/2024 - 10:41 am

Z2 Entertainment, in collaboration with 97.3 KBCO, is thrilled to announce an evening with the legendary Tommy Emmanuel, Certified Guitar Player (CGP), at the iconic Chautauqua Auditorium on Thursday, June 20, 2024. Doors open at 6:30 pm with the show starting at 7:30 pm.

An extraordinary night of music awaits as Tommy Emmanuel brings his unparalleled guitar playing to Boulder, showcasing his vibrant joy and the sheer magic of his live performances. Known for his ability to simultaneously play multiple parts on a single acoustic guitar, Emmanuel's shows are an exploration of joy and the boundless possibilities of music.

Event Details:

    Date: Thursday, June 20, 2024
    Venue: Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, CO
    Doors: 6:30 PM | Show: 7:30 PM
    Tickets: $43.00 - $53.00, plus applicable service fees. Available for purchase starting Friday, March 1, at 10 am HERE.
    VIP Packages: Available for an enhanced concert experience.
    Age: All Ages Welcome

With a career that spans decades, Emmanuel's live performances are a testament to his status as a true virtuoso. His infectious energy and masterful guitar skills have captivated audiences worldwide, making his concerts a must-see event. The upcoming show at Chautauqua Auditorium promises to be an unforgettable experience, filled with the joy and passion that Tommy brings to every note he plays.

In addition to his live performances, Tommy Emmanuel's discography is a journey through musical excellence. His latest album, "Accomplice Two", features collaborations with renowned artists across various genres, showcasing Emmanuel's versatility and deep love for music. Fans can also look forward to "Accomplice LIVE!", a new television special airing on PBS, featuring performances with Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Sierra Hull, Yasmin Williams, and more.

Tommy Emmanuel's commitment to his craft and his ability to connect with audiences make his shows a celebration of music's power to bring joy. Don't miss the opportunity to see this guitar legend live in action.

For tickets and more information, please visit Z2 Entertainment's website.

Tue, 03/05/2024 - 3:27 pm

Z2 Entertainment, in partnership with 97.3 KBCO, is thrilled to announce an evening with Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers at the Chautauqua Auditorium on Sunday, August 11, 2024. This special performance marks the 25th anniversary of Hornsby's critically acclaimed album "Spirit Trail," offering fans a unique opportunity to experience the album’s rich musical landscape live. Doors will open at 6:30 pm with the show starting at 7:30 pm.

Tickets for this all-ages event will go on sale on Friday, March 8 at 10:00 am, available exclusively through Z2 Entertainment's website. Prices range from $48.00 to $75.00, plus applicable service fees, ensuring an option for every fan.

Hailing from Williamsburg, VA, Bruce Hornsby first captured the nation's attention with his debut album "The Way It Is" in 1986, which won a Grammy and became the most-played song on American radio in 1987. His influence extended to the hip-hop realm when Tupac Shakur sampled "The Way It Is" for his profound track “Changes,” demonstrating Hornsby’s wide-ranging impact on music. Beyond his own successful solo career, Hornsby's extensive collaborative work includes playing with Bonnie Raitt on “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and joining the Grateful Dead as a part-time member, contributing to over 100 concerts across America and Europe.

With 23 albums that have sold over 11 million copies worldwide and appearances on over 100 other records, Bruce Hornsby’s status as a prolific collaborator and talented musician is undisputed. His contributions span across a variety of genres and artists, including Bob Dylan, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, and many more. His most recent studio album, ‘Flicted, was released in May 2022, adding another acclaimed project to his extensive discography.

Don't miss the chance to witness the magic of Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers live as they celebrate a significant milestone in their illustrious career. Mark your calendars for an unforgettable night of music and memories at the Chautauqua Auditorium on August 11, 2024.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit https://www.z2ent.com/events/detail/bruce-hornsby-2024-cha.

Tue, 03/19/2024 - 11:32 am

In response to overwhelming demand, Z2 Entertainment, in partnership with 97.3 KBCO, is thrilled to announce the addition of a second performance by the legendary Graham Nash at Chautauqua Auditorium. Following the rapid sell-out of his show on Wednesday, August 7, 2024, a second night has been scheduled for Saturday, August 3, 2024, offering fans another opportunity to experience an intimate evening of songs and stories with the iconic musician.

Event Details:

    Artist: Graham Nash
    Event: More Evenings of Songs and Stories
    Venue: Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, CO
    Dates:
        Saturday, August 3, 2024
        Wednesday, August 7, 2024 (SOLD OUT)
    Doors Open: 6:30 pm
    Show Starts: 7:30 pm
    Ticket Prices: $50.00 - $100.00, plus applicable service fees
    Age: All Ages
    Tickets On Sale: Friday, March 22 at 10:00 am. Available online HERE.

This special series of performances, "More Evenings of Songs and Stories," promises to be a memorable experience, offering a personal glimpse into the life and music of Graham Nash. Known for his work with The Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Nash’s contributions to music are legendary. His intimate performances at Chautauqua Auditorium are not to be missed, providing fans with an up-close and personal look at his incredible journey through the world of music.

Tickets for the newly added show on Saturday, August 3, are expected to sell out quickly, following the rapid pace at which the first show's tickets were snapped up. Fans are encouraged to act fast to secure their seats for this extraordinary evening of music and storytelling.

Don’t miss this chance to see Graham Nash live in an unparalleled setting. For tickets and more information, visit the official Z2 Entertainment website or click HERE.