News Release

CHAPEL HILL -- Jazz artist and five-time Grammy nominee Nnenna Freelon will perform a benefit concert on March 24 for the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The 8 p.m. concert had been originally slated for Oct. 30, 2004, but was postponed due to scheduling conflicts with UNC’s homecoming festivities.

Freelon, who makes her home in Durham, has performed with jazz stars such as Ellis Marsalis, Al Jarreau, George Benson and the late Ray Charles. The Los Angeles Times has placed Freelon "in the very top echelons of jazz vocalists." She is a recipient of the Eubie Blake Award and the Academie du Jazz’s Billie Holiday Award and has been nominated twice for a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award.

"Live," the most recent of her eight albums (2003), is her first live recording and her second as producer. Freelon also teaches workshops nationwide for novice and professional singers of all ages, including "Babysong" workshops for infants.

The event will be the first major concert performance held in the Harold J. Cobb Sr. Theatre, a 360-seat facility located inside the Stone Center at 150 South Road.

Ticket prices for this fund-raising performance are $50 for limited reserved seating, $35 for the public, $15 for students and $25 per person for groups of 10 or more. Ticket costs are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions.

For ticket information, call the Carolina Union Box Office at (919) 962-1449. For more information on the Stone Center, visit http://ibiblio.org/shscbch/.

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Stone Center contact: Damien Jackson, (919) 962-9001 or dtjack@email.unc.edu

News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu