Performing Arts Series 2007-08

Ticket prices are $20/adult, $15/seniors, and $5/student. Sewanee faculty, staff and students are admitted free. Season tickets are available for $90. All seating is general admission.

To order tickets online through our secure server, please click here.

(Please note that all dates and times are subject to change. Please confirm details before making travel arrangements.)

Edgar Meyer
and Mike Marshall
Edgar Meyer and Mike Marshall
Sewanee Sesquicentennial Celebration Weekend
Saturday, October 6, 2007, 8 p.m.
Guerry Auditorium

For over twenty years bassist Edgar Meyer and Mike Marshall have been at the vanguard of American instrumental string music and together and separately have helped create some of the most exciting music around today.

While still a teenager Mike was performing and recording with the original David Grisman Quintet, Stephane Grappelli, Tony Rice, Mark O'Connor and Darol Anger. From there Mike went on to play for the Montreux band and recorded several CDs for the Windham Hill label This eventually led to his initial foray into classical music with his own Modern Mandolin Quartet. Mike has not been easy to pin down stylistically as can be proven by his recordings of Brazilian music as well as performances with Indian Tabla master Zakir Hussain. Never one to stay in one place for too long he has continued to reinvent himself musically and in the process created an amazing body of work.

Edgar, a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship Genius Grant for 2002, is arguably the greatest classical bassist to ever pick up the instrument. His recordings with Yo Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor have won two Grammies and his concertos for solo bass and orchestra have set a new standard for the bass literature. To hear Edgar perform the suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach is to witness the shear magnificence of the acoustic bass and all it's colors and dynamic range. Together these two musicians have recorded with Bela Fleck for the Sony Classical Label Uncommon Ritual and a CD with violinist Joshua Bell and mandolinist Sam Bush entitled Short Trip Home.

The two present a lighthearted concert of adventurous music making with the kind of variety, beauty and range rarely seen.


Avner the Eccentric
Friday, October 26, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Guerry Auditorium

"Avner the Eccentric is a brilliant comic ... hurt yourself hysterically funny. I laughed for two solid hours.  The show only lasted an hour and a half." Joel Siegel, ABC-TV

Avner Eisenberg is probably best known for his endearing portrayal of The Jewel, the scene-stealing holy man, in The Jewel of the Nile, co-starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. He was also featured in the film Brenda Starr and the television series’ Webster and Mathnet.

Avner’s one-man show, Avner the Eccentric, was a hit of the 1984-1985 Broadway season. He co-starred in Lincoln Center’s production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, and returned to Broadway in 1989 in a principal role in Ghetto. In regional theatre Avner has played both Estragon and Vladimir in Waiting For Godot, played the title role in R. Crumb Comix, and co-starred with his wife, Julie Goell, in the world premier of Zoo of Tranquility.

Avner’s new show, Exceptions to Gravity, defies the barriers of language and culture and has toured extensively all over the US and abroad.


Pierre Pincemaille, Concert Organist
Wednesday, October 31, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
All Saints' Chapel

Pierre Pincemaille has been Titular Organist of the Cathedral-Basilica of Saint-Denis, home of the first of the great Cavaillé-Coll instruments, since 1987 following a full competition for the post.  He is widely regarded as the artistic successor to Pierre Cochereau, his own teacher, because of his prowess at and style of improvisation. After gaining five First Prizes from the National Music Conservatory in Paris he went on to win the top prizes in improvisation not only at the famous Chartres International Organ Competition, but at competitions in Lyon, Beauvais, Strasbourg, and Montbrison.

He has toured widely as both a recitalist and orchestral soloist in Europe, North America, Russia, China, and South Africa, and performing under the batons of conductors such as Mstislav Rostropovitch, Myung-Whun Chung, Riccardo Muti, and Charles Dutoit.  His long discography is still growing with new releases on the Solstice label.

The historic basilica at St.-Denis is the first major structure in the Gothic style and the prototype of the great cathedrals of France. It was begun in 1136 on the site of a fifth century church and served as the royal necropolis for nearly all of the kings of France, from Dagobert in the seventh century until Louis XVII in the nineteenth century. The historic organ was Cavaillé-Coll’s first commission, in 1833, and was completed in 1841.

Pincemaille also teaches harmony at the most prestigious French music school, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. He has been given the honor of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

“The playing is remarkable...you can’t get better than this!”  The Organ, England

Photo: Tom Caravaglia
Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company
Saturday, November 10, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Guerry Auditorium

Paul Taylor established Taylor 2 in 1993 to ensure that his works could be seen by audiences all over the world, unhindered by economic or technical limitations. Mr. Taylor worked with longtime colleague Linda Hodes to create a company that could accommodate performance requests as well as teach and provide community outreach. Mr. Taylor looked back to the 1954 origins of the Paul Taylor Dance Company for the structure of his new company: six professionals with a particular gift for his style who perform his work throughout the world.

Engagements are flexible and are customized to meet the needs of each community, and often consist of master classes and lecture demonstrations in addition to performances in non-traditional venues as well as theaters.

In selecting repertoire for Taylor 2, Mr. Taylor chooses dances that span the broad spectrum of his work. Several of the dances performed by Taylor 2 have been re-worked from the Paul Taylor Dance Company's version to enable the smaller ensemble of dancers to perform them. Critics and audiences cheer as Taylor 2 introduces the athleticism, humor and range of emotions found in Mr. Taylor's work.


The Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Saturday, January 19, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Guerry Auditorium

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band derives its name from Preservation Hall, the venerable music venue located in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, founded in 1961 by  Allan and Sandra Jaffe. The band has traveled worldwide spreading  their mission to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz. Whether performing at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, for  British royalty or the King of Thailand, this music embodies a  joyful, timeless spirit. Under the auspices of current director,  Ben Jaffe, the son of founders Allan and Sandra, Preservation Hall continues with a deep reverence and consciousness of its greatest  attributes in the modern day as a venue, band, and record label.

The PHJB began touring in 1963 and for many years there were several bands successfully touring under the name Preservation  Hall. Many of the band's charter members performed with the pioneers  who invented jazz in the early twentieth century including Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Bunk Johnson. Band  leaders over the band’s history include the brothers Willie  and Percy Humphrey, husband and wife Billie and De De Pierce, and famed pianist Sweet Emma Barrett. These founding artists and dozens of others passed on the lessons of their music to a younger generation  who now follow in their footsteps like current band leader and trumpeter John Brunious.


The King's Singers
Monday, February 25, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Guerry Auditorium

Founded at King's College in Cambridge in 1968, the King’s Singers are one of the world's most sought-after and acclaimed vocal ensembles.  Known for presenting diverse programs encompassing a wide range of repertoire, they have performed throughout North America in such prestigious venues as New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in the major halls of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco, and at major American music festivals such as Tanglewood, Ravinia, the Hollywood Bowl, Wolf Trap and Interlochen.  In addition to the King’s Singers’ countless a cappella recitals, the ensemble has appeared with the symphonies of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Fort Worth, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Toronto, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra, and the New York, Boston and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. The ensemble is a perennial favorite of the renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir, with whom they have performed as part of the Olympic Arts Festival at the 2002 Winter Olympic games in Salt Lake City. The Washington Post has written: “The singing was technically breathtaking, luxuriously beautiful and musically intact.”

This extraordinary vocal ensemble is equally at home singing Renaissance madrigals, transcriptions of orchestral classics, folk music in various languages and popular songs. This wide-ranging repertoire is reflected in the ensemble's more than 70 recordings, which have won several Grammy nominations.  In January 2001, King’s Singers received another Grammy award nomination in the category of “Best Classical Crossover Recording” for Circle of Life (RCA Victor), an orchestral recording featuring popular songs from hit films with the Metropole Orchestra of Holland conducted by Carl Davis. Chanson d'Amour, a collection of international love songs, reached the top ten on the Billboard crossover charts. Other recordings in the canon run the gamut from Annie Laurie – Folk Songs of the British Isles to Good Vibrations, featuring unique arrangements of pop songs by Paul Simon, Billy Joel and Phil Collins, among others.



Please note that all dates and times are subject to change.  Email performingarts@sewanee.edu or call 931-598-1770 to confirm details before making travel arrangements.