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| Django A Gogo Music Festival Celebrates 10th Anniversary Three of the world's greatest acoustic guitarists will come together on the world's most iconic stage March 3, as the Django A Gogo Music Festival celebrates it's 10th anniversary with a special one-night-only concert at Carnegie Hall. Headlined by France's Stephane Wrembel, who's been hailed by Rolling Stone as "a revelation on guitar, " American "fusion hero" (The New Yorker) Al Di Meola, and Dutch-born Gypsy jazz master Stochelo Rosenberg, the concert—which honors the towering legacy of Django Reinhardt—will also feature performances by an international all-star lineup featuring David Gastine, Ryan Montbleau, Larry Keel, Nick Anderson, Thor Jensen, and Ari Folman-Cohen. The historic Carnegie Hall show is set to come in conjunction with a week-long Django A Gogo Music Camp across the Hudson River in Maplewood, NJ, running from Feb 28-March 5. Featuring daytime master classes and evening performances from the festival artists and a slew of other world-class guitarists, the camp will provide musicians of all levels the rare opportunity to become deeply immersed the music with some of the greatest teachers and performers of their time. Students will learn in small group settings and workshops from the artists of their choice, and then have the unique opportunity to see them in action each night with collaborative performances at Maplewood's gorgeous Woodland Concert Hall. The Django A Gogo Music Festival began a decade ago with an intimate concert by Wrembel and friends at the unassuming Brooklyn watering hole Barbes. Within a few years, the festival had gone from best-kept-secret to hot-ticket, and the show moved to Joe's Pub in Manhattan to accommodate high demand. It continued to expand annually, eventually growing to encompass multiple nights in multiple cities on its way to becoming the most celebrated touring Django Reinhardt festival in the United States. "I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of freedom and jamming that exists in the Gypsy campsites while maintaining a high level of professionalism by bringing in the best players from around the world, " Wrembel says of the festival's origins. "Being from both cultures, I can sense how American and European players can meet freely at a higher level around Django's music. Not only was he innovative and original, but he also set up all the tools for modern guitar playing. He's the only artist in the world to have his own style and celebrations and festivals all over the planet dedicated to him." Praised by the New York Times as "intense and full of charisma" and celebrated for his "sparkling, speedy fingerwork" by NPR, Wrembel began his career busking on the streets and is now considered to be one of the most astonishing guitarists performing today. His distinctive style is likely familiar to moviegoers who have heard his work in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris or his performance at the 2012 Academy Awards, but he's most adored by his fans for his exhilarating live shows, described by Variety as a "John Coltrane-ish search for a moment of musical nirvana." Crowned as "one of the most technically accomplished guitarists working in the jazz-fusion idiom" by the New York Times and voted Best Jazz Guitarist by the readers of Guitar Player magazine more than any other artist, Al Di Meola joined supergroup Return To Forever with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White at the tender age of 19. Since then, he's released roughly 20 albums, sold more than six million records, and worked with superstars in practically every genre, including Luciano Pavarotti, Paul Simon, Phil Collins, Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Les Paul, Jimmy Page, Steve Vai, Frank Zappa, and more. Born in a Gypsy camp in the Netherlands in 1968, Stochelo Rosenberg has been called a "stunning virtuoso" by Jazz Times and "astonishing" for his "musical feats of derring-do" by the Sydney Morning Herald. Over nearly three decades of recording and touring, he's graced jazz's most famous festivals, from North Sea to Montreal, and stages from Carnegie Hall in New York to the Rose Bowl in LA. Django A Gogo Music Camp To Include Master Classes and Intimate Performances in Maplewood, NJ, Feb 28-Mar 5 write your comments about the article :: © 2016 Jazz News :: home page |