The Sheen Center Continues Live Music Series with Grace McLean & Them Apples

The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker Street, NYC) continues their live music series, "Inspirations: Women And Their Muses," with a one night only event featuring Grace McLean & Them Apples, Friday, April 20 in The Loreto Theater. Tickets are $35 and available at SheenCenter.org, by phone at (212) 925-2812, or in-person at The Sheen Center box office.

Known to Broadway audiences for her performance as Marya N*E*R*D in the Tony Award winning musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, Grace McLean has recently returned from a ten-city, State Department good will tour of Russia. An actress-singer-writer-teacher with a sound that's quirky, jazzy, irreverent, sassy and full of rhythm, McLean is inspired by women as diverse as Joni Mitchell, Fiona Apple, Ella Fitzgerald, Liz Swados, and St. Hildegarde von Bingen, Manhattan User's Guide writes, "[She has] seriously infectious melodies with seriously antic lyrics ... her voice can Raise the Roof, or ... break your heart." Called "electrifying" by The Huffington Post and "phenomenal" by The New York Times,

Grace McLean is a multi-hyphenate actress-singer-writer-teacher on the rise. In addition to her recent performance in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) Grace also performs her acclaimed original music, both as a solo artist and with her band Grace McLean & Them Apples. With a sound that combines Regina Spektor's quirkiness, Nellie McKay's jazz sensibilities, Fiona Apple's irreverence, Kimbra's sass and Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs' rhythm, McLean adds up to one beautiful weirdo.

Manhattan User's Guide writes, "this pop and jazz singer writes seriously infectious melodies with seriously antic lyrics. Her voice can Raise the Roof, or she can slide off a note and break your heart," and Stephen Holden of The New York Times says "Ms. McLean's voice [is] a flexible instrument with unexpected reserves of power...Behind her playful adventurousness lies a well of passion." Grace was a headlining performer and vocal instructor at the SingStrong a capella festivals in DC and Chicago in 2014 and in 2015 her band participated in a US State Department sponsored tour of Pakistan. Grace McLean & Them Apples headlined the Lincoln Center American Songbook in both 2015 and 2016, and Grace is the 2017 recipient of the Hunt Family Emerging Artist Award through Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Grace's work as a performer and educator has taken her to Jamaica, Scotland, Italy, Croatia, Serbia and Pakistan. In New York, you can find her band at Joe's Pub, 54 Below, Rockwood Music Hall, Ars Nova (where she developed the interactive concert experience Grace McLean: Lives in Concert), and the Museum of the American Indian, where they performed as part of a panel discussion on storytelling for The Economist's 2012 Ideas Summit.

As a solo performer Grace has been seen at Lincoln Center, New York City Center, The McKittrick, BAM, the ACE Hotel (where she collaborates monthly with The Dance Cartel's show OnTheFloor) and numerous other venues both uptown and downtown. She is also a frequent contributor to Obie winning investagative theater company The Civilians' cabaret series "Let Me Ascertain You." McLean has developed work at CAP21, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Orchard Project, Johnny Mercer Writer's Colony at Goodspeed, and her pop opera about 12th century mystic Hildegard von Bingen has been commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater. Grace released her newest EP in May 2015, featuring the single, and her first feature video, "Natural Disaster". The band released its latest full length album in 2017. "Make Me Breakfast," the 2012 EP from Grace McLean & Them Apples, is also available.

Find out more at www.gracemclean.com The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (www.sheencenter.org) is a New York City arts center located in NoHo that presents a vibrant mix of theater, film, music, art and talk events. An initiative of the Archdiocese of New York, The Sheen Center serves all New Yorkers by presenting performances and artists that reflect the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Named for the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, best remembered as an inspirational author, radio host and two-time Emmy Award-winning television personality, The Sheen Center reflects his modern-day approach to contemporary topics. The Sheen Center is a state-of-the-art theater complex that includes the 270-seat off-Broadway Loreto Theater, equipped with five-camera high-definition TV and live-stream capability and a multi-track recording studio; the 80-seat off-off-Broadway Black Box Theater; four rehearsal studios; and an art gallery.