Stew & Heidi Rodewald Bring NOTES OF A NATIVE SONG to Contemporary Art Center Tonight

The Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (CAC) presents Notes of a Native Song, a musical collaboration by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, will be presented today and tomorrow, December 9-10, 2016 in the CAC's Freeport-McMoRan Theater at 7:30pm.

A genre-melding, blues-rock song cycle, the performance celebrates James Baldwin, a leading African American writer and activist of the mid-20th century, whose work explored the inherent complexities of Western racial, sexual, and class distinctions.

Rather than an exploration of Baldwin himself, the show is conceived as Stew's reaction to Baldwin's work--a demonstration of the impact the writer continues to have on black artists today. Backed by a full band with longtime collaborator Heidi Rodewald, multimedia projections, video and commentary, a driving rock rhythm with jazz elements, along with thought-provoking and sometimes humorous lyrics, the work demonstrates the often unspoken bond between contemporary artists and those who have gone before, and speaks to the evolution of art shared over time.

IF YOU GO:

NOTES OF A NATIVE SONG

Featuring Stew & the Negro Problem

Text and Lyrics by Stew

Music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald

At Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

Advance Tickets $35 General Admission | $25 CAC Members
Day of Show $40 General Admission | $30 CAC Members

Buy Online cacno.org or at the CAC Box Office - 504.528.3805

Visit cacno.org to purchase tickets and for more information about exhibitions, related programs, and special events.

Stew's work includes Passing Strange, for which he received the 2008 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and four other Tony nominations, including Best Musical. He is also a two-time Obie Award-winner for Passing Strange. Spike Lee shot a feature film of the Broadway production of Passing Strange and it rocked selected theaters throughout the US before debuting on PBS' Great Performances in 2009. Stew leads a band called Stew & The Negro Problem, whose eight albums have attracted much critical acclaim and numerous "Album of the Year" awards. Stew's work has been featured on multiple occasions at Lincoln Center, the United Nations, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Getty Museum, Hammer Museum, UCLA Live, Seattle Repertory Theater, NPR, and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Heidi Rodewald is the Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning co-composer of the musical Passing Strange, which transferred from The Public Theater to Broadway in 2008. She is a Sundance Institute alumna and the co-writer with Stew of the screenplay We Can See Today. Rodewald composed music for Karen Kandel's Portraits: Night and Day (2004); Brides of the Moon by The Five Lesbian Brothers (2010); and co-composed with Stew music for Shakespeare's Othello,Much Ado About Nothing, and Romeo and Juliet (2010-12). Rodewald joined Stew & The Negro Problem in 1997, and since then has worked alongside Stew, performing, producing, arranging, and composing. She is the co-composer of the new musical,The Total Bent, which just finished a successful run at The Public Theater.

The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) is a multidisciplinary arts center dedicated to the presentation, production, and promotion of the art of our time. Formed in 1976 by a passionate group of visual and performing artists when the movement to tear down the walls between visual and performing arts was active nationwide, the CAC expresses its mission by organizing world class curated exhibitions, performances, and public programs that educate and enlarge audiences for the arts while encouraging collaboration among diverse stakeholders composed of artists, institutions, communities, and supporters throughout the world.