Opening Weekend Concert at Levee Park
James Armstrong

Renowned Chicago rhythm and blues artist! Back by popular demand. Rain venue: WSU Somsen Auditorium.

James Armstrong
Saturday, June 30th at 9:00 pm
Lake Park Bandshell
FREE and Open to the Public

In celebration of the opening weekend of the Great River Shakespeare Festival’s 4th Season, Theatre du Mississippi is proud to present the prelude series for the GRSF 2007 season.

Critics have said that James Armstrong was born to play the blues. His mother was a blues singer and his father played jazz guitar. As a child, he absorbed the sounds and lessons of his father’s friends, among them Irving Ashby, Nat King Cole’s guitarist. Today he travels the world and continues to infuse his voice and guitar-playing with his unique personal history, raw instincts and seasoned skills.

Known as an artist who respects the solid foundation of the blues tradition, Armstrong keeps the genre alive by injecting a contemporary groove into everything he does. He credits Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as influences, and Armstrong has shared the stage with the likes of Roy Brown, Chaka Khan, Ricky Lee Jones, Jan & Dean, and Joe Louis Walker, just to name just a few.

“We saw James Armstrong at the Trempealeau Hotel Blues Festival last summer, and he was just outstanding,” said Greg Peterson, chair of the Theatre du Mississippi board. “The crowd loved his band, and we felt he was a perfect choice for this free community concert. It’s going to be a great, family friendly event.”

Cam Waters has spent the last twenty-odd years crisscrossing the country and honing his unique style on the stages of coffeehouses, clubs, concert halls, and festivals. Music writers across the country and in Europe consistently commend his understated, expressive singing and his simple yet inventive fingerstyle and slide guitar playing.

His literate, tradition-based songwriting mixes seamlessly with his arrangements of rural blues, jug band songs, and American folk music. He has appeared in concert with Doc Watson, Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, Maria Muldaur, Greg Brown, Spider John Koerner, Roy Book Binder, Steve James, Bob Brozman, Robin and Linda Williams, and many more of acoustic music’s most well-respected performers.

Hailed by Billboard Magazine as “a singer’s singer” Liz Queler continuously explores her diversity moving comfortably from theaters and coffeehouses to the stage of Carnegie Hall.

Known primarily as a singer/songwriter with three critically acclaimed CDs to date, Liz made her Carnegie Hall debut in the fall of 2002 as a soloist in Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS”, a production that was repeated with the Dallas Symphony to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy the following year.

A native New Yorker and the daughter of esteemed opera conductor Eve Queler, Liz grew up on the stages of Lincoln Center as a member of the NYC Opera Children’s Chorus. After graduating from Tufts University, she attended Berklee College of Music to study jazz piano and guitar. Liz then followed her songwriting muse back to New York where she gained entrance as backup singer for widely respected Cliff Eberhardt. Liz has played many of the high profile festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival, as well as top clubs such as the legendary Bottom Line in NYC and The Birchmere in Washington, DC. She’s also opened for many artists including Richie Havens, Cheryl Wheeler, Steve Forbert, Janis Ian and Guy Clark.

Liz’s husband Seth Farber, was born into music. Raised in New York City by his mother, a piano teacher, and his father, a music aficionado and amateur violinist, Seth discovered his affinity for the piano at the age of four. It’s no wonder that years later he’d find himself one of the busiest keyboard players in Manhattan. Since 1984, Seth could be heard playing in the blues, rock and jazz clubs, piano bars, theatres and studios around town.

Over the past 15 years Seth has recorded and performed with artists Odetta, Billy Joel, Cliff Eberhardt, Joan Osborne, Phoebe Snow, John Prine, Lucinda Williams, Chip Taylor, Curtis Stigers, Chuck Jackson, Popa Chubby, Alejandro Escovedo, Little Steven, Liz Queler and many others.

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Curtis & Loretta’s music comes straight from the heart. The husband and wife duo’s extraordinary harmonies and proficiency on a parade of stringed instruments create an alluring frame for their poignant original songs, and carefully chosen traditional pieces from the British Isles, America, and beyond. The current menagerie includes Celtic harp, mandocello, mandolin, guitars, clawhammer banjo, and National steel ukulele, plus a bit of kazoo, harmonica, and shakers.

Over the next three decades, Curtis Teague and Loretta Simonet’s harmonies have gotten tighter than ever, their stage presence has blossomed, and they’ve graduated from the street to dedicated fans at folk clubs across the U.S. They rack up 40,000 miles a year, crisscrossing the country to deliver their own unique brand of folk singer/songwriter music. They’ve shared billings with Jez Lowe, Vassar Clements, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Anne Hills, Greg Brown, Holly Near, and Bill Staines, to name just a few.

Chris Koza (acoustic guitar, lead vocals) is thankful and fortunate to share the stage and music-making with the following musicians who are so good (and patient) to learn and play these songs: Luke Anderson (drums, percussion); Justin Blair (bass guitar, backing vocals); Ben Foote (emergency bass guitar); JoAnna James (sirenesque vocals and weepy violins); Peter Sieve (electric guitar, percussion, backing vocals). They make these songs exciting to perform.

Deep into autumn of 2004 and unbeknownst to most, Chris released his debut album “Exit Pesce” in Pete and Justin’s apartment on Chicago Avenue. It wasn’t until early the following year when a little blurb by Rob van Alstyne of the Pulse was printed before anyone really took notice of the album. “An under-the-radar-music-stunner
-phenomenon” is what he called it. Since then, the album has gone on to be coerced into the ears of many a listener thanks to many nice folks, 89.3 the Current, and friends of friends. Dylan Hicks of CITY PAGES said, “…I’m convinced that he’s the best singer-
songwriter to come out of Minneapolis in the last couple of years.”

Chris would like to add that he was raised by the wild mongoose before being trapped in a cork tree and rescued by the pious gardeners of a Norwegian convent, who then sold him to a race of space pirates for a rosary made of comet dust.

Now a Winona tradition!
1909 hand-painted scenery - a great narrator script by Lynn Nankivil and dramatic readings from the classics by the GRSF apprentice actors. A truly unique experience!

As one reviewer put it: “Gráda is not a household name in the U.S. yet but if this talented quintet appears anywhere within 100 miles of you, hi’ thee hence!”

Eliza Gilkyson
Friday, October 5th at 7:30pm
Historic Masonic Theatre

The daughter of successful songwriter, Terry Gilkyson, Eliza is a third generation musician who grew up in Los Angeles knowing that her life would revolve around music. “I got into it for all the wrong reasons, more as a survival tool than anything else, but it proved to serve me more than I dared to imagine.” The critics and her fans think Eliza made the right choice.

The Theatre du Mississippi concert is part of Eliza’s Paradise Hotel CD tour.

“Masterfully structured, startlingly intimate songs in a beautifully lived in voice . . .”

With twenty years experience in sharing his music, John has honed his connection to an audience during performances to an amazing mix of virtuoso musicianship and front porch intimacy. People who are touched by his music emerge from his concerts not just as fans but friends.

The Frozen River Film Festival is an annual 4-day event located in Winona, MN, a city tucked within the epicenter of organic, sustainable family farming in the Upper Midwest. The Festival’s goal is to inspire, educate and engage attendees about issues surrounding the environment, world cultures, adventure and extreme sports through a broad range of multi-media experiences, including film, music, workshops, speaking engagements, educational programs, and outdoor activities.

Baroque Ensemble - Terpsichore
Sunday, February 17th at 4:00pm
St. Cecilia Hall on 7th & Vila Streets

When Ann was 12, growing up in a suburb of Minneapolis, she borrowed her brother’s guitar (the one he bought with the $40 their grandmother had given him to buy a suit) and taught herself to play. The die was cast. Since then, there have been 15 albums, countless concerts, festival dates at world-renowned venues such as Bumbershoot and the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and television and radio appearances, including Good Morning America, A Prairie Home Companion, and Minnesota Public Radio’s Morning Show, where she occasionally fills in as co-host.

It all boils down to this: Ann loves what she does. And the people who hear her music love what she does. Ann Reed — with the rich alto, the smooth guitar licks, the great songs, the sly wit — is having the time of her life.

Dan regularly creates special programs for Minnesota Public Radio which blend storytelling, interview and music. Two recent shows, “Cafe Europa” (2005) and “Mambo Italiano” (2006) have been aired on Twin Cities public televison and broadcast statewide on MPR.

Dan grew up in a musical family, attended St. John’s University in Collegeville MN (1985) and spent four years as a teacher of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota.