Thursday, November 01, 2007

Wilmington, N.C. - Renowned jazz violinist Regina Carter performs at 8 p.m on Thursday, Nov. 1 in Kenan Auditorium. Carter performs a new program based on her recent recording, I'll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey, including works by Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, W. C. Handy and other greats. Joining Carter on stage are members of her acoustic quintet - Darryl Harper, clarinet; Xavier Davis, piano; Matthew Parrish, bass and Alvester Garnett, drums. The concert marks the third event in UNCW Presents' Arts in Action Performance Series.

Violinist Regina Carter combines dazzling technical proficiency and profound compositional and improvisational gifts with a fresh, aggressive approach to her instrument and a multicultural perspective -and she challenges our preconceptions regarding the instrument. In Carter's hands, the violin reveals both its melodic side and its potential for percussive expression. Perhaps more significantly, Carter demonstrates the violinist's eagerness to explore musical combinations and contexts both familiar and unexpected. As a college student at the New England Conservatory, she studied both classical and jazz before deciding to pursue jazz fulltime. In 1987, she joined the all-female jazz quintet Straight Ahead and recorded two albums with them before deciding to step out on her own. Now based in New York, she has worked with the likes of Oliver Lake, Max Roach, the Uptown String Quartet and the String Trio of New York.

A recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellows Program "genius" grant, Carter is one of the freshest and most exciting performers in contemporary jazz. She puts her indelible stamp on collaborations with artists as diverse as Wynton Marsalis, Lauryn Hill, Cassandra Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige and Dolly Parton. With her own band, Regina Carter reaps praise for her unparalleled ability to integrate the finer elements of jazz, funk, African, Brazilian and soul music with an adventurous rhythmic sensibility. "Regina Carter plays music that is wonderfully listenable, probingly intelligent, and at times, breathtakingly daring…taking the listener into the future of jazz," wrote Time.

For her UNCW performance, Carter will feature material from her recent recordings I'll Be Seeing You, featuring intimate acoustic arrangements of songs spanning the '20s to the 40s, and Paganini: After a Dream, along with music that has yet to be recorded.

BOX OFFICE AND TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets are $6 for university and area students, $14 UNCW faculty/staff, alumni and senior citizens; $18 general public. Call Kenan Box Office at 910.962.3500 or 800.732.3643 outside the Wilmington area. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday and one hour prior to the event.

About Arts in Action Performance Series

The Arts In Action Performance Series seeks to culturally enrich, educate and entertain both students and the general public through the presentation of diverse programs featuring professional, high-quality performing artists. For more information, please visit the UNCW Presents web site at www.uncw.edu/presents.

UNCW Presents is a member of the NC Presenters Consortium and the US National Association of Performing Arts Presenters. The 150 member venues of the NC Presenters Consortium may be visited at www.presenters.org.