Paul Simon News

2013 promises to be a banner year for Tom Wopat. From the Feb. 12 release of his eighth recording 'I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER,' to his role in Quentin Tarrantino's highly anticipated film 'Django Unchained,'

In 1988, John Lennon's wife Yoko Ono gave a candid interview to record-label president Joe Smith about the Beatles' split: "For John, it was a divorce. I think he was feeling very good about it, as if a big weight was off him." Ono was among more than 200 celebrated performers, producers and industry leaders whose words Smith captured on audiotape more than 25 years ago in an effort to document the oral history of popular music.

Acting Up Stage presents TAPESTRIES this Monday, a unique concert featurin the music of Carole King and James Taylor as arranged by Reza Jacobs. These concerts take place once a year and feature some of Canada's best and brightest musical theatre talent paying tribute to some of the most well-known and loved music of the past century. This year's show features Cynthia Dale, Josh Young, Jake Epstein, Arlene Duncan, Sterling Jarvis and more. Reza spoke to BWW about how he goes about putting the show together, how he feels about Toronto's musical theatre landscape and why people should come see the show.

GPR Records (Glen Roven, Peter Fitzgerald, Richard Cohen, artistic directors)releases a children's CD of Catherine Zeta-Jones narrating The Runaway Bunny, based on the best selling children's classic by Margaret Wise Brown. Michael Douglas narrates everyone's favorite elephant - The Story of Babar - The Little Elephant, a 1931 classic written by Jean de Brunhoff. Also on the CD will be English Baritone Mark Stone singing Goodnight Moon also by Margaret Wise Brown. The CD, distributed by Naxos, will be released today, November 15th and will be available at www.GPRRecords.com, Amazon, and iTunes.

The Barns at Wolf Trap presents two evenings with famed Folk-Rock veterans, plus an Eclectic Harmonic Jazz Performance from a Flecktone. First, The Barns at Wolf Trap presents Karla Bonoff & Steve Forbert performing tonight, November 14 at 8 pm and Thursday, November 15 at 8 pm. Tickets are priced at $27.

To spread the word and get perfect strangers making music together, Guitar Mash will hold its inaugural event at City Winery today, November 11, 2012, 11:30am. The centerpiece will be a mass jam led by musical director Mark Stewart and a selection of "star guitarists" backed by a band of New York's finest session players, featuring tunes participants can download and practice prior to the show. Guests will enjoy brunch, craft beers and cocktails.

Two-time Tony Award winner and Theater Hall of Fame inductee Ben Vereen will bring his one-man show -- a timeless and intimate journey through the Broadway songbook - to NJPAC's Victoria Theater on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 1 p.m.

Feinstein's (540 Park Avenue, 61 Street) has announced the swift return to New York of London's fast- rising West End and cabaret singer Joanna Strand, in "Fly Transatlantic". This is her beautifully crafted musical journey through songs with roots both sides of the Atlantic. The performance is Wednesday 5 December at 10.30p.m.

Following a string of high-profile dates with Gary Clark Jr., Kat Edmonson will embark on another run November 23 supporting the iconic Chris Isaak. The shows support Edmonson's recent release WAY DOWN LOW which debuted #1 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart.

Kat Edmonson, whose sophomore album 'Way Down Low' is on sale now, has added additional headline shows and been named direct support for a string of dates with Gary Clark Jr.

Z2 Entertainment will present Kyle Hollingsworth Band & John Brown's Body to the Boulder Theater tonight, November 3rd, 2012. Tickets are $20.00 general admission.

Stephen Hawking and his fellow physicists may not have yet figured out the formula for traveling through the time-space continuum, but apparently the Metropolitan Room discovered the secret. Last Friday night (October 26), I walked through the curtain into the main performance space and entered a time tunnel that took me from the 21st century into the 1960s and '70s. Two lovely, rising young stars of cabaret, Lauren Fox and Jennifer Sheehan (photo left), had obviously hurtled though that same time warp because in two separate shows on the same evening, they performed songs that had been written and recorded 15 to 25 years before they were born. In the process they transported this particular Baby Boomer joyously back to his youth and to the days of cultural upheaval, generation gaps, peace, love, war, and some of the best pop/rock music ever written.

GPR Records (Glen Roven, Peter Fitzgerald, Richard Cohen, artistic directors) will release a children's CD of Catherine Zeta-Jones narrating The Runaway Bunny, based on the best selling children's classic by Margaret Wise Brown. Michael Douglas narrates everyone's favorite elephant - The Story of Babar - The Little Elephant, a 1931 classic written by Jean de Brunhoff. Also on the CD will be English Baritone Mark Stone singing Goodnight Moon also by Margaret Wise Brown. The CD, distributed by Naxos, will be released on November 15th and will be available at www.GPRRecords.com, Amazon, and iTunes.

Joanna Strand will make her New York cabaret debut at The Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street - between 5th & 6th Avenues) in "Fly Transatlantic," described as 'an epic, yet beautifully contemplative, journey of musical discovery.' Performances tonight, October 28 and Monday, October 29 at 9:30 p.m.

The Barns at Wolf Trap will present two evenings with famed Folk-Rock veterans, plus an Eclectic Harmonic Jazz Performance from a Flecktone. First, Karla Bonoff & Steve Forbert performing on Wednesday, November 14 at 8 pm and Thursday, November 15 at 8 pm. Next, The Flecktones's Howard Levy with Chris Siebold performing on Friday, November 16 at 8 pm.

To spread the word and get perfect strangers making music together, Guitar Mash will hold its inaugural event at City Winery on Sunday November 11, 2012, 11:30am. The centerpiece will be a mass jam led by musical director Mark Stewart and a selection of "star guitarists" backed by a band of New York's finest session players, featuring tunes participants can download and practice prior to the show. Guests will enjoy brunch, craft beers and cocktails.

The 1st Annual Bob Stewart Tuba Competition, created by The Duke Ellington Center for the Arts, will be held today, October 20, 2012 from 12 Noon to 5 PM as part of The 37th Annual 52nd Street Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. The competition has been created to provide enhanced exposure to the many dynamic tuba players who perform in improvisational music ensembles in and around the New York area. The five groups chosen for the competition perform in a wide range of genres from traditional and contemporary Jazz to Blues, hip-hop, funk rock and world music.

You know that saying that 'two is better than one?' Well it couldn't have been a more enjoyably appropriate description than the swingin'-est concert to hit Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in some time: the double-bill of jazz powerhouses Jane Monheit and John Pizzarelli. The two talented stars--each accompanied by their own incredible traveling bands--played to an almost-packed house this past Friday, October 5 as the rousing season opener for the 2012-2013 Cabaret Series at the Center.

Jeff Slate, founder and frontman for beloved indie outfit, The Badge, has announced that his first solo-project LP release Birds of Paradox will be available today, October 9, 2012, with an album release party to follow at Joe's Pub Wednesday, October 10, 2012.

Tonight in New York, British music entrepreneur Simon Fuller was honoured in front of an audience of 5,000 music fans at the historic Radio City Music Hall at a star-studded benefit concert to mark the 25th year of the Children's Health Fund. At the concert, Simon Fuller, the CEO of XIX Entertainment and creator of 'American Idol', received the Founders' Award to acknowledge his role as Creator and Executive Producer of 'Idol Gives Back', a record-breaking TV telethon that has raised $185 million for good causes since 2007.