Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota Adds Two Outdoor Concerts to its 2021-22 Season

Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota will return to the great outdoors with two added performances by the bay at Selby Gardens' downtown Sarasota campus, 1534 Mound Street, Sarasota. The first concert, on January 20 at 5:30 p.m., features three members of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (David Macaluso, Cameron Smith and Laurelyn Watson Chase) and pianist Joseph Holt, performing a selection of timelss favorites from the classic operas of Gilbert & Sullivan. The second concert, on February 17 at 5:30 p.m., features prize-winning trumpeter, composer (and Sarasota native) Luca Stine and his new Crosscurrent Quartet. The group makes their Sarasota debut with premieres of Stine's genre-blending compositions as well as fresh takes on American Songbook selections by Cole Porter and George Gershwin. Tickets for each concert are $40 and are available online at www.ArtistSeriesConcerts.org or by calling 941-306-1202, Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

COVID-19 update: Artist Series Concerts' top priority remains the health and safety of its patrons, performers and staff. While the organization is a partner in SafeArts Sarasota and continues to follow the policies and protocols set forth by this initiative, masks or face coverings will be optional while patrons are outdoors for these performances. Proof of vaccination or of a negative COVID test is still required. Updates and Artist Series Concerts' most recent COVID-19 statement can be seen at www.ArtistSeriesConcerts.org.

"Oddly enough, it took COVID-19 and the closing of indoor venues last season to push us to present the first outdoor concerts ever in our 25 years," says Marcy Miller, executive director of Artist Series Concerts. The forced experiment was a notable success, with almost all of the organization's outdoor concerts selling out, leaving audiences begging for more. "Outdoor concerts are still clearly very popular and we're pleased to add these two performances, featuring two diverse and outstanding ensembles."

Now in its forty-seventh year of operation, New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) is America's preeminent professional Gilbert & Sullivan repertory ensemble. Under the dynamic leadership of artistic director Albert Bergeret, who New York Magazine has hailed as "the leading custodian of the G&S classics," NYGASP has created its own special niche in the cultural mosaic of New York City and the nation. Since its founding in 1974, the company has presented over 2,500 performances of Gilbert & Sulllivan masterpieces throughout the United States, Canada, and the U.K. Collectively, the three NYGSP vocalists (David Macaluso, Cameron Smith and Laurelyn Watson Chase), have performed extensively with NYGSP as well as with other regional opera companies, orchestras and festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad. Pianist Joseph Holt brings his own G&S cred to the mix as, in addition to serving more than twenty years as principal pianist with the United States Army Chorus in Washington, DC, he was also music director for the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society - the only theater company in the country with its own law school (Georgetown Law). The ensemble's January 20th repertoire will include numerous selections from The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and Iolanthe.

The February 17 performance switches gears with the creative and genre-blending jazz of Luca Stine and his Crosscurrent Quartet. A two-time winner of Suncoast Music Scholarships (a collaboration between Artist Series Concerts and the Sarasota Music Club), and a frequent performer around town, trumpeter and Sarasota native Luca Stine is no stranger to area jazz enthusiasts. Now studying jazz trumpet performance and classical composition at the University of Miami's acclaimed Frost School of Music, Stine has since been named a National Young Arts winner in Jazz Composition, has performed at the Newport Jazz Festival as a part of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, and been featured with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. He is a working member of the Eric Stern Quartet and the Ben Thomas Taylor Ensemble, with whom he recently performed at the JAS Aspen Snowmass festival in Colorado. Growing up in a family of classical musicians, Stine was exposed to a variety of classical and jazz influences early on in life. Those influences will be on display when Stine and his new ensemble, the Crosscurrent Quartet (Donald DiStefano, piano; Blake Adridge, bass; and Henry Mohr, drums), premier Stine's new compositions - blends of classical and impressionistic styles and African American jazz rhythms and harmonies. The Quartet's program will include Stine's original Sea Speak (in homage to Debussy's La Mer), an arrangement of Sibelius' Symphony #2, fresh takes on American Songbook selections by Cole Porter and George Gershwin, and more.

"From the ongoing vitality of the musical legacy that is Gilbert & Sullivan, to the modern jazz of a young visionary like Luca Stine, these concerts represent a small yet captivating cross-section of the great music that is being made today," says Miller. "Couple them with the unique backdrop of the bay front at Selby Gardens, and I think audiences will be in for an uplifting and inspiring musical treat."

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