Friday, April 22, 2011

Buttonwood Buzz - Blibbering Humdingers, the jazz bug, folk, writing, and politics!




















submitted by The Buttonwood Tree:

The Buttonwood Tree was filled last night with folks young at heart of all ages! Musicians and fans alike came from Middletown, Canterbury, Trumbull and neighboring states to play, sing and dance to music inspired by J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books. Never have we heard so much of the audience singing along in perfect harmony - it was glorious! The Blibbering Humdingers, a husband and wife duo from North Carolina, were the headliners, but Bella and Le Strangers, Lauren Fairweather and others also got the crowd to their feet clapping, singing and dancing!

Tonight the Tree won't be filled with bright blue-haired fans and crazy costumes (at least we don't think so), but it may be filled with jazz fans. Usually Saturday night is jazz night at Buttonwood, but this week its Friday, with folk on Saturday.
Karen Frisk performs tonight with her jazz band of Kent Hewitt, piano, Genevieve Rose on bass and Jack Varanelli on drums. After studying classical piano and voice at Richard Donohue Studios, Karen was selected to tour Bavaria and perform with the Concordia Youth Choir sponsored through the Boston Conservatory. In her late teens the “jazz bug” bit her… swing, latin jazz and R&B filled her soul and the rest is history. She studied jazz piano with Merrill Doucette at the Hartford Conservatory and then moved on to study jazz/pop vocals and performance with Roberta Peck-Vater, a well known music educator and Capitol Records recording artist.

Saturday night, we are excited to present
Diane Solomon as a special guest along with our good friend, Jim Paradis. Diane has an interesting history: she headed four major UK Theater concert tours of her own, toured with Glen Campbell on three European tours, and opened for a major Kenny Rogers’ tour in 1991. She starred in the network primetime series “The Diane Solomon Show” of the late seventies, which was a great success, and she quickly became a regular on British TV, with other specials of her own, and numerous guest appearances, including several Royal Gala Specials. She recorded 5 albums, appeared on countless radio shows, TV hosting, and musical theater productions.

Also on Saturday:
Creative writing workshop with Eileen Albrizio at 1 pm and from 3:45 - 5:45: Ben Florsheim and Gabriela De Golia, Wesleyan students and interns with Organizing for America, a project of Democratic National Committee, lead an event to discuss the policy progress of the Obama Administration, our goals for the future, and community organizing strategies that will be crucial as we kick off the 2012 campaign.

For Reservations and more information:
www.buttonwood.org Both shows start at 8 and light refreshments are available.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Organizing for America event should be short if topic is progress made by Obama. Americans still waiting for those shovel-ready jobs - oops, those don't really exist. How about Gitmo - has that been closed yet? oops - haven't quite gotten there but $$ still being spent to detain those yet to be charged. Have we withdrawn from Afghanistan? No, but we have increased troops so does that count? Yeah, thanks but no thanks. Obama has been a major disappointment - having voter's regret and won't be making that mistake again in 2012.