Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2009 Elaine and Jerome Rosenfeld Concerts in the Courtyard summer series offers an international flair with an exciting range of music from Africa, the Caribbean, and Spain, as well as soul, gospel, and Cajun sounds from America.
All concerts take place outside in the MFA's Calderwood Courtyard on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 pm (if it rains, concerts are moved inside to Remis Auditorium).
June 24: Bettye LaVette
The summer series will kick off with Bettye LaVette, one of the greatest soul singers in American music history, possessed of an incredibly expressive voice that one moment exudes a formidable level of strength and intensity, and the next appears vulnerable, reflective and full of heartbreak.
July 1: Marco Benevento Trio
Brooklyn-based, post-jazz pianist Marco Benevento performs music from his critically acclaimed new album, Me Not Me, including interpretations of songs by My Morning Jacket, Leonard Cohen, and Deerhoof.
July 8: Martha Wainwright
Tender and tough, beautiful and brutal, simmering with invention and confidence, singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright's expressive, characterful voice swoops, soars, and settles.
July 15: King Sunny Ade and his African Beats
King Sunny Ade, the legendary Minister of Enjoyment, brings his Nigerian Juju music to the Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston.
July 22: Grupo Fantasma
Grupo Fantasma is hailed as the funkiest, finest, and hardest working Latin orchestra to come from the United States in the last decade.
July 29: Alex Cuba
Cuban soul rocker and two-time Juno Award (Canada's Grammy) winner Alex Cuba hails from Artemisa, Cuba, and resides in Smithers, British Columbia. His sugarcane-sweet melodies, pop-soul hooks, and rock chords subvert commonly held notions of what Cuban music is.
August 5: The Holmes Brothers & Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens
Noted for their ability to transform songs by legendary writers, from The Beatles to Tom Waits to Bob Marley, The Holmes Brothers push that tradition even farther on their new album State of Grace, where they expertly reinvent songs by diverse songwriters. Naomi Shelton is no ordinary gospel singer. Though she, like many others, grew up singing with her sisters in their Alabama church, she has also spent much of her life in the soul clubs around New York. With her first official full-length release coming this month, it shows that her singing is equally influenced by both facets of her life.
August 12: Kaki King
New York-based musician Kaki King has evolved from an acoustic instrumentalist to a full-fledged, multi-faceted songwriter, composer, and vocalist. Hear her perform selections from her 2008 album, Dreaming of Revenge, which shows off her new musical direction.
August 19: Buika
Hailed as the "Flamenco Queen," Buika is the daughter of political refugees from the African nation of Equatorial Guinea and grew up in a gypsy neighborhood on the Spanish island of Mallorca. The New York Times calls her unique blend of flamenco, jazz, soul, and blues "luminous...magnificent...superb!"
August 26: Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys
Matching their uncompromising respect for tradition with a forward-looking vision, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys have set the standard for modern Cajun music. The media sponsor for the Elaine and Jerome Rosenfeld Concerts in the Courtyard is The Boston Phoenix. -- www.mfa.org
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