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gospel music releases United States

Cheryl Fortune takes first spot on Billboard Gospel Recurrent chart, earns award

Per a recent news release, Grammy Award nominated singer-songwriter, Cheryl Fortune, has landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Recurrent chart with the song, “Fighters.” After 31 weeks on the Billboard Gospel Airplay chart, the song took the top spot on the Recurrent chart with a whopping 725 detections. In other news, the HGAG Music Video and Film Festival selected “Fighters” as best music video of the year during a screening at the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs on the campus of Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas.

“Fighters” is the first radio single from Fortune’s stunning debut album, Simply Cheryl (LuDawn Music/Tyscot), which debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard Gospel Albums sales chart in October. The versatile singer will release new radio singles from the urban inspirational album in January.

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jazz music Uncategorized United States

Graveface Records’ Xiu Xiu announces Nina Simone covers album “NINA”

NINA-Xiu-Xiu-cover-artWith an artist as wide-ranging and prolific as Xiu Xiu‘s Jamie Stewart, it can be hard to put into words what, exactly, his music sounds like. But when it comes to Stewart’s forthcoming NINA, he certainly doesn’t sound like himself.
NINA is a thank-you note, a love letter and a kind of musical fan-fic for the late icon Nina Simone. This being Xiu Xiu, of course, Stewart’s tribute album is far from a collection of straight covers. Rather, he and long-time collaborator Ches Smith — “the only person I know who could understand this in his heart and also handle the technical side of fearlessly reorienting such wonderful music” — bring Simone into focus through their own avant-dark lens.
“The idea came being back stage in Austin, Texas, opening for Swans and feeling like I did not play well,” Stewart explains in a news release. The night before, he and Swans’ Michael Gira had discussed Simone, their love both for her talent as a musician and her fearlessness as a civil rights activist, and how Simone inspired them to make better work. Feeling down on himself, yet inspired both by the memory of Simone and the “epic and beautiful persistence” of Gira and Swans, Stewart decided to honor Simone and challenge himself in making NINA.
To that end, NINA was recorded in just one day, all in first or second takes. In doing so, Stewart captured the immediacy of the feelings that inspired the record, but it was also a practical decision. Stewart is a busy man. In the next year alone he has a new full-length Xiu Xiu record coming out, along with other planned releases, and an event with conceptual artist Danh Vo at Milwaukee’s Walker Arts Center in October. Last month, he wrapped up another performance, “Dark Materials,” with visual artist Monika Grzymala and choreographer Jeremy Wade at Hamburg’s Internationales Sommerfestival and he’s also been busy touring with Swans and working with Eugene Robinson from Oxbow on their side project, Sal Mineo.

 

Categories
arts performances United States

The Ensemble Theatre continues season with “Knock Me a Kiss” by Charles Smith

houstonensembleThe Ensemble Theatre,  3535 Main St. in Houston, Texas, will debut its first production from  Jan. 31 to Feb. 24, 2013, by award winning playwright Charles  Smith as its 2012-2013 season continues. The show will be directed by visiting artist Chuck Smith, resident director at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.

“Knock Me a Kiss” takes place during the 1920s in Harlem. The story follows Yolonda DuBois, a woman torn between two lovers. One is a fast-living musician, Jimmy Lunceford, the other a poet, Countee Cullen, sanctioned by her father, activist W.E.B. DuBois. This fictional account is inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ daughter Yolande to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost black  intellectual, co-founder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a poet  whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. At what personal cost does a leader pay to make life better for so many others when he is blind to those living in his own home?

The Ensemble Theatre’s 2012-2013 Season is sponsored in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and Texas Commission on the Arts. United Airlines is the exclusive airline sponsor for The Ensemble Theatre. For more information, call  (713) 520-0055.