Grammy-Winning Trio Globo Performs with Vocalist Loire Friday Night

November 3, 2014

The multiple Grammy Award-winning musicians of Trio Globo, a totally original voice in contemporary acoustic jazz, will be joined by rhythm vocalist Loire for a series of events Nov. 6–8, sponsored by the DePauw University School of Music. The sessions include a Green Guest Artist Concert on Friday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m., and several master classes, Thursday through Saturday, at the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts.

Collaborating and touring together since 1993, the artists of Trio Globo have redefined the performance parameters of their individual instruments and have each achieved international acclaim as soloists and composers. Cellist Eugene Friesen, a four-time Grammy winner and faculty member of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, has performed and recorded with Dave Brubeck and the Paul Winter Consort, among many others; Howard Levy, pianist and master harmonica player has worked with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Paul Simon, Paquito d’Rivera, and Styx to name just a few of the artists with whom he has recorded. Four-time Grammy Award-winning percussionist Glen Velez, also a member of the Paul Winter Consort and a seminal figure in the history of modern percussion, will, coincidentally, be inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame later this month in Indianapolis.

As a collective, Trio Globo is known for combining its collaborative ethos and almost combustible spontaneity with a natural joie de vivre in a way that has come to epitomize 21^st-century performance practices -- mixing rhythmic influences they have derived from travels in six continents with their roots in jazz, classical and sacred music.

Loire (aka Lori Cotler; pictured at left), a classically trained jazz vocalist and music therapist, described as “astonishing” by the Chicago Tribune, will join the Trio in Friday’s Green Concert in Kresge Auditorium and will also offer a vocal master class at 4 p.m. Thursday (GCPA, room 1029), demonstrating her unique style of singing and also guiding students in experimenting with their own voices. Loire’s unusual artistry combines world and pop music elements with jazz scat improvisations and original reworkings of the highly sophisticated and rare vocal art of Konnakol (South Indian drum language).

Saturday, Nov. 8, from 10 a.m.–noon on the Green Center’s Kresge Auditorium stage, Friesen will draw from the repertoire of his Berklee Jazz String Orchestra to lead local string students in performing swing and rhythm based improvisations in a Jazz String Improvisation class. The cellist will use new music to introduce skills specific to playing jazz in an ensemble setting, creating exciting accompaniment to soloists and to featuring the rhythmic capabilities of strings.

Velez, master of a wide variety of percussion instruments from the frame drum to the Caribbean steel pan drums and the Filipino buzz sticks will be joined by Bonnie Whiting, director of the percussion studio at DePauw, for a drumming class on Saturday, Nov. 8 from 1–3 p.m. in Kresge that is free and open to all. Prior experience is not needed to participate; the School of Music will provide drums for as many attendees as possible for the Saturday class.

“One thing I think is really compelling about Trio Globo is not just the way the ensemble spans so many different genres but actually uses different instruments. You will hear Glen doing a lot of that,” says Whiting. “He is an incredibly versatile player. He’ll just put down one instrument and pick up another. Or, you’ll hear something from one culture suddenly placed in a different context, making it alive and fresh -- and what makes that possible is the incredible fluidity of his technique. I think we are all going to be just blown away by that.”

General admission tickets for Green Guest Artist Concerts, which are $10 in advance and $15 the day of the event, are available online and at the Green Center box office.  Tickets for students, seniors and children are free, thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green ('74 & '75).  For information or assistance obtaining tickets, visit www.depauw.edu/music/tickets, or stop by or call the box office, (765) 658-4827.

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