CLAREMONT — Two performances will take place in the upcoming week at Union Episcopal Church in Claremont.
On Aug. 8, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. outside the church at 133 Old Church Road, Chicago’s popular indie-funk band and SXSW Music Festival performer Bassel & The Supernaturals will join visitors for a night of soul. Bring a chair or a blanket to sit on; rain location will be inside Union Church.
Bassel & The Supernaturals is an eclectic ensemble based in Chicago, led by the soulful vocals of Syrian-American songwriter Bassel Almadani. Their music combines soul, jazz, and funk with captivating lyrics about love, loss, corporate life, and a war in Syria that has directly affected Bassel’s family along with over 10,000,000 others. Admission is by donation.
On Aug. 10, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the church, Kinan Azmeh on clarinet and Dinuk Wijeratne on piano celebrate 10 years at West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts (WCCMA) with new works by the acclaimed duo.
The Duo creates a new sonic world through their unique fusion of Arabic and south-Asian vocabulary with classical and jazz idioms. Audiences are moved by their expressive performances and the stories that inspired them.
Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh is hailed as a “virtuoso” and “intensely soulful” by the New York Times, “spellbinding” by the New Yorker, and “incredibly rich sound” by the CBC, all according to a press release. Kinan has been touring the world as soloist, composer and improviser. His utterly distinctive sound across different musical genres has gained him international recognition as clarinetist and composer. Kinan was recently named composer-in-residence with Classical Movements for the 2017-2018 season, and he is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble with whom he was awarded a Grammy in 2017. Sri Lankan-born Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne is a JUNO award-winning composer, conductor, and pianist who has been described by the Toronto Star as “an artist who reflects a positive vision of our cultural future,” and by the New York Times as “exuberantly creative.” His boundary-crossing work sees him equally at home in collaborations with symphony orchestras and string quartets, tabla players and DJs, and takes him to international venues as poles apart as the Berlin Philharmonie and the North Sea Jazz Festival.
The performance is made possible in part by a donation from the Byrne Foundation, and is funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.
The performances are part of WCCMA’s Summer Concert Series at Union Church, a music series committed to barriers-free access to great music. Admission is by donation. For more information about WCCMA, visit wcc-ma.org.
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