An Amazing Preview of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts

TITAS is very excited to begin presenting our season at the brand new, glorious DCPA in the Fall of 2009. Although it's still very much under construction, you can get a great idea of what it will look like in this virtual tour:

Check out this recent Aspen Santa Fe Ballet video

TITAS is presenting a return engagement by the ultra-hip Aspen Santa Fe Ballet on Friday & Saturday, April 18 & 19 at 8:00 PM at McFarlin Auditorium. To get a good idea of what this company is about, check out this new video:

East Village Opera Company on Houston Public Radio

TITAS is presenting an encore concert by New York's East Village Opera Company on Thursday, May 1 at 8:00 PM at McFarlin Auditorium. For those that don't know, this rock band + string quintet + 2 world class vocalists = Opera with a Rock Twist. Classic opera arias are presented with a rock twist for a completely new and unique music experience.

To get some great insight on the band and what they do, listen to this interview conducted by Houston's KUHF radio.

Monterey Jazz All-Stars Leave Audience Wanting More

Last Friday's performance by the Monterey Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary All-Stars was one of the most impressive and infectious musical shows that TITAS has ever presented. With musicians spanning nearly 50 years in age, these jazz masters were a fantastic representation of the wealth of talent and glorious musicianship that has participated in the Monterey Jazz Festival. Terence Blanchard's performance of a pair of cuts from his A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) was particularly jaw-dropping.

Thor Christensen from The Dallas Morning News was similarly impressed:

Sax ace James Moody first played the Monterey Jazz Festival 47 years ago – back when, as he put it Friday night, "none of these gentlemen were even born."

He wasn't joking. The male players in the festival's 50th Anniversary Tour ranged from 27-year-old drummer Kendrick Scott to 45-year-old trumpeter Terence Blanchard. And the band's token female, singer Nnenna Freelon, is still almost 30 years younger than the 82-year-old Mr. Moody.

But for a group with such far-flung experience levels, it meshed seamlessly in its TITAS concert at McFarlin Auditorium. This wasn't one of those all-star bands that seem like a disjointed parade of egos.

Click here for rest of review.

Ted Gioia of Jazz.com had a great review of the show on jazz.com as well:

Not every musician is game for such a long and winding road-trip. But I am especially impressed that James Moody, now 82 years old, signed on for the tour. Moody first played the Monterey Jazz Festival some 47 years ago – which is before any of his fellow all-stars were born. Of course, Moody doesn’t look his age, certainly doesn't act it, and his playing shows no signs of excess mileage. Perhaps he was right in crediting his younger bandmates – who also include trumpeter Terence Blanchard, pianist Benny Green and bassist Derrick Hodge – for keeping him feeling robust.

For the rest of the review, click here.

TITAS to MOVE IN TO DALLAS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS IN 2009!

It's finalized!

On Tuesday, November 6, TITAS and the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts announced their partnership and TITAS will move the bulk of our season to the phenomenal new venue, slated to open its doors in 2009.


For the complete story, follow this link to The Dallas Morning News' story.

The fact that TITAS will be a prominent part of what will become one of the world's most impressive performing arts facilities is truly an honor and shows the importance of TITAS' programming to the Dallas arts scene. We can't wait!

Doug Varone and Dancers Take McFarlin by Storm

This past weekend, TITAS wound up 2007 by presenting NYC's Doug Varone and Dancers. In two impressive performances, the renowned company dazzled audiences with their trademark ingenuity and fluid abilities.

Margaret Putnam of The Dallas Morning News wrote, "Doug Varone and Dancers tumbled, skittered, fell, slid and swirled for two heady hours Friday night at Southern Methodist University's McFarlin Auditorium. This is the third time for TITAS to present the company, and none can match it for its spins and swoops, of endless shifts in direction, of complex interplay.

If the three works displayed the same scattershot momentum, they offered striking contrasts in mood: the impetuous Castles, the haunting Boats Leaving and the dreamy Lux."

For the complete review, click here.

Portuguese sensation MARIZA will be making her TITAS debut on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 8:00 PM at McFarlin Auditorium. Call today for tickets, as she is really picking up steam lately and rapidly becoming one of the hottest artists in the world music scene today.

Recent Mariza News:

Mariza performs at the Late Show with David Letterman on October 11th
Mariza is David Letterman's guest in the famous comedy talk show broadcast by CBS on October 11th. Mariza will perform live on National American television. More info: www.cbs.com/lateshow


Mariza Latin Grammy Award nomination

Mariza nominated for Latin GRAMMY Award
We are proud to announce Mariza has been nominated for a Latin GRAMMY Award! Mariza's album Concerto Em Lisboa has been selected by the judges in the category of 'Best Folk Album'.

The album is a live recording of Mariza with symphonic orchestra Sinfonietta de Lisboa, conducted by Jaques Morelenbaum in the lush gardens of Belem, Lisbon. It was released in Europe in November 2006 (EMI/World Connection) and in March 2007 in North America (Times Square Records/ World Connection).

Mariza is the first Portuguese artist ever nominated for the Latin GRAMMY Awards!

The 8th Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards will be held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on Nov. 8 and will be broadcast on the Univision Network at 8 p.m./7C. http://www.grammy.com/latin/8_latin



PBS Special “Concerto Em Lisboa” on American Television
Mariza’s live performance, recorded in Belem, Lisbon in 2005 during the recordings of the GRAMMY nominated album Concerto Em Lisboa, will be broadcasted on American Television. Stay tuned to PBS website and the World Connection site for the broadcasting date.

Angelique Kidjo Sings For Education in Benin

TITAS is presenting Benin-based vocalist and four-time Grammy nominee Angelique Kidjo on Thursday, February 28, 2008 for the first time on our season. She recently opened for Josh Groban at the American Airlines Center in Dallas and released her new album "Djin Djin" that features contributions from Groban, Alicia Keys, Peter Gabriel, Joss Stone, Carlos Santana, and more.

She recently performed a concert in Benin to help support education:

Benin diva Kidjo lulls girls into school with song

By Samuel Elijah 2 hours, 17 minutes ago

SO-AVA, Benin (Reuters) - Belting out her "Lost Children" anthem against child exploitation, Benin pop diva Angelique Kidjo launched a campaign this week to get thousands of African girls into school.

Her native country has acquired a name as a hub for trafficking children into domestic servitude and many children attend "voodoo convents," meaning large numbers, especially girls, miss out on a school education.

The singer, whose two-decade career spans a range of musical styles and high-profile collaborations, has launched the U.S.-registered Batonga Foundation to get girls across Africa out of domestic work or prostitution and into classrooms.

"I am proud to be from Benin, but my pride will not be complete until all our girls go to school. We are poor because we don't send our children to school," she told crowds of young people on Tuesday at the lagoon-side town of So-Ava, 20 km (13 miles) from the West African country's main city Cotonou.

"Girls who go to school know how to protect themselves against disease. They have more chance of having healthy babies and they are better able to manage the household accounts to break out of poverty," said Kidjo, who is a goodwill ambassador for U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF.

Click here for the full story.

Mariza teams up with Frank Gehry

Architect Gehry builds fantasy with fado singer

Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:41AM EDT

By Mary Milliken

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Powerful people all over the world would do just about anything to get renowned architect Frank Gehry to design for them. All Mariza had to do was sing.

Her interpretation of fado, the soulful music of Portugal, has moved Gehry to turn the stage of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the steel-clad architectural gem he created for Los Angeles, into a cozy tavern.

Their joint creation will last a single night, October 28.

"When I met Mariza and heard her sing I was immediately connected to a whole bunch of things and Lisbon became symbolic of the greatest place on earth," Gehry said in an interview on Friday.

Gehry was seduced by the light and character of Lisbon, where majestic pastel-colored buildings reflect off the waters of the Tagus river and evoke the riches of Portugal's colonial empire.

"Lisbon somehow connected California to Europe for me," he said.

That was five years ago. Mariza, born in the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique in 1973, has since become an international star, performing in the likes of Royal Albert Hall in London, New York's Carnegie Hall and yes, the Disney Concert Hall.

"Once she did a concert here, I was staggered by how she understood this room quickly. She just got it," said Gehry as he sat with Mariza on stage, the soaring ceiling overhead.

Mariza had been wowed by the outside of the building, but the inside, she said, was a masterpiece of a music hall, that felt intimate on contact and pushed her to sing a cappella.

"Only a person who really loves art and music could think about what the artist is going to feel on stage," said Mariza, who goes by that single name.

So Gehry asked Mariza if he could design a Lisbon "taverna" on stage and her costume the next time she came.

"For the first time in my life, I am going to have my own taverna," said Mariza, who grew up around her father's tavern in the traditional Mouraria neighborhood on a Lisbon hillside.

'MAYBE MY OWN FANTASY'

Gehry won architecture's highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, in 1989 and his best-known work, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, made him one of the world's most sought-after architects.

He remains in high gear at the age of 78, working on projects all over the world including the large-scale redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles.

But he has never collaborated with a performer like he has with Mariza.

"I don't really go looking for stuff like this. I wouldn't do it with many people," said Gehry, who was born in Canada but moved to Los Angeles early in life.

"This is very important. I would like to see her more visible in the U.S. and I would like people to hear about and understand the connection between Southern California and Lisbon, the light, and the quality and the character of life."

Fado, which translates to fate in English, is often associated with melancholy and the waves of Portuguese emigrants afflicted by "saudade," or longing.

But Mariza insists it is not sad, and she herself bears no resemblance to the black-clad, somber fado singers of the past, such as grande dame of fado Amalia Rodrigues. She is tall, lithe, wears vertiginous high heels and sports shortly cropped blond hair.

"You can have a happy concert, because fado and Lisbon have that side too, not just the melancholy side," said Mariza. "They have the happiness, the fashion, the love, the saudade, everything."

Gehry nodded as he soaked up Mariza's words, but he maintained he is a fan of Mariza more than a fan of fado.

"When I hear her sing, she represents Lisbon to me. Maybe it's my own fantasy and I've built it up into something. But she does. It's Lisbon and Lisbon is a great story."

Portuguese Fado Singer MARIZA to Make Dallas Debut

Continuing our tradition of seeking out world-class talent and bringing it to Dallas for the first time, TITAS is proud to present MARIZA, a Portuguese Fado sensation. Be one of the first to see her on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 8:00 PM at McFarlin Auditorium!

Read this recent review of her performance in Washington D.C. to get a better idea of what this up-and-coming star will bring:

WASHINGTON POST by Stephen Brookes
26/03/2007

Mariza

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The traditional Portuguese music known as fado is not for the timid. Passionate and uninhibited, it revels in drama, diving recklessly into the dark pathos of the human heart. In the hands of its best interpreters, fado's power can be primal and almost overwhelming -- and it's starting to catch on with audiences around the world.

Much of the credit for that goes to Mariza, a 33-year-old fadista whose superb contralto voice and fearless sense of drama have made her a star on the rise. Born in Mozambique and raised in Portugal, she's been reviving and reinventing the traditional fado style, and the results -- as she showed at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Friday night -- are nothing short of spectacular.

Backed by a percussionist and a trio of guitars, Mariza sang a mix of newer and more traditional fado. "Cavaleiro Monge" and "Maria Lisboa" were fine-tuned and intricately detailed, her voice sweeping effortlessly from searing cries to whispered confessions. Full of longing, awash in sadness and regret, it was an evening of defiantly emotional music. And when Mariza unleashed the full power of her voice -- as she did in the wrenching "Primavera" -- it was one long, devastating cry from the heart.

The program was originally to include the Mexican singer Eugenia Leon, who had to cancel due to an injury. Unfortunate as that was, Mariza and her accompanying band -- particularly the amazing Luis Guerreiro on the round-bodied Portuguese guitar -- more than made up for the loss, winning multiple ovations from the packed house.

TITAS to present ANGELIQUE KIDJO next season

As part of the 2007-2008 Music Season, TITAS will be featuring African singing star ANGELIQUE KIDJO on Thursday, February 28, 2007 at 8:00 PM at McFarlin Auditorium.

For ticket information, please call the TITAS Box Office at 214-528-5576.

Check out the most recent news on Ms. Kidjo:

ANGELIQUE KIDJO RINGS IN HIGHEST ALBUM DEBUT EVER WITH "DJIN DJIN" LOS ANGELES (Starbucks Entertainment) - International music star Angelique Kidjo's has notched her highest chart position ever, as her new album DJIN DJIN (pronounced "gin gin") bows at No 61 on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart, selling nearly 11,000 copies in its first week. The album has also entered Billboard's World Music chart at No 1 and comes in at No 56 on the Canadian Album chart. DJIN DJIN was co-released on May 1st by Starbucks Entertainment and Razor & Tie Entertainment and has received rave reviews from the press. The Associated Press declared the album "lush, dense and beautiful", while The New York Times said of Kidjo's performances on the new album, "she handily reinforces her stature as an upbeat heroine of contemporary Afro-pop." The Washington Times stated, "Despite having been nominated four times, Ms. Kidjo has yet to take home a Grammy. If she continues putting material out like this, it's only a matter of time before she does." Kidjo and guest star Ziggy Marley will be performing a track from the album, "Sedjedo", on NBC's The Tonight Show on Tuesday, May 22nd and will appear on The CBS Saturday Early Show on Saturday, July 14th. The first single from DJIN DJIN, "Salala", featuring Peter Gabriel can be heard nationwide on such tastemaker radio stations as KFOG/San Francisco, WBOS/Boston, KCRW/Los Angeles and many more.