News Release

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Marsalis, Addy, Odadaa!
to play Memorial Hall

CHAPEL HILL - Wynton Marsalis and his Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will perform with special guest Yacub Addy and his 20-member drumming ensemble, Odadaa!, on April 29 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The sold-out concert, at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall's Beasley-Curtis Auditorium, will be the last performance of the 2005-2006 Carolina Performing Arts Series.

The concert will feature the new work "Congo Square," written by Marsalis and Addy. It celebrates New Orleans' public square - now Louis Armstrong Park - where African slaves were free to dance and play music, contributing to the origins of jazz and blues.

Marsalis, a New Orleans native, has won nine Grammy awards and a Pulitzer Prize in music, the first for a jazz artist. He is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, a New York nonprofit organization dedicated to jazz.

Addy launched a revival of traditional Ghanaian music when his country gained its independence in 1957. In 1982, he organized musicians mostly from his own Ga ethnic group to form the drumming ensemble Odadaa!

Since Hurricane Katrina, Marsalis has been raising funds for the restoration of his home city. Last September, Jazz at Lincoln Center produced a Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert and Auction in New York. The accompanying Higher Ground Relief Fund has raised more than $3 million; sales of a live recording of the concert have raised more than $100,000 for the fund.

Marsalis has been named to the Bring Back New Orleans Commission, established to help rebuild New Orleans culturally, socially and economically.

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the resident group for Jazz at Lincoln Center since 1988, performs and leads educational events worldwide. Its repertory spans the history of jazz, from the works of Duke Ellington and Count Basie to commissioned works and other contemporary pieces.

Odadaa! combines African percussion, vocals, bamboo flutes, shekeres, balaphones and guitar. A variety of drums - from tall to short, cylindrical to rectangular and upright to hand-held - are played by hand, by foot and with straight or curved sticks. A bell usually provides the critical basic beat.

The sophomore season of the Carolina Performing Arts Series in the renovated Memorial Hall will begin on Sept. 15 with an opening gala and concert by Lyle Lovett. Also scheduled for the 50-date season are the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Cleveland Orchestra and other well known artists.

Subscriptions are on sale now. Pick Six Tix will go on sale to UNC students, faculty and staff and to subscribers on May 1, and to the public on June 1; single tickets for all performances, on June 1.

To purchase tickets, call or visit the Memorial Hall Box Office on Cameron Avenue, (919) 843-3333, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. For more information, e-mail performingarts@unc.edu or visit http://www.carolinaperformingarts.org/.

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Photo URLs: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/memorial/wynton_marsalis.jpg
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/memorial/wynton_marsalis2.jpg

Contact for artist interviews: Scott Thompson, (212) 258-9807 or sthompson@jalc.org
Contact for concert coverage guidelines and the Carolina Performing Arts Series: Don Smith, (919) 843-3119 or donsmith@unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589