Fuse News: In March, Celebrity Series Will Help Us “Stave” Off Boredom

by Debra Cash

Becca Stevens. Photo: Tom Kershaw

Jazz, pop, and folk singer/guitarist Becca Stevens, who grew up performing Appalachian-based tunes, will be part of the Celebrity Series’ Stave Sessions. Photo: Tom Kershaw.

Who says classical music and jazz only appeal to a graying audience? The Celebrity Series looked around our own community and beyond, and recognized that younger audiences and musicians were enjoying these forms in genre-bending and multicultural incarnations. They just weren’t necessarily doing so in the traditional concert hall. (Being able to imbibe a beverage and nibble a snack during a performance seemed like a perfectly reasonable request, especially if the event qualified as a date night.)

Fast forward to this coming March. A week-long festival titled “Stave Sessions” will be held at the beautiful, new building at the Berklee School of Music, with cabaret style seating and urban vibe. The site will introduce a valuable new venue, but it’s the music that will grab audiences, with everything from hot string quarter Brooklyn Rider to Roomful of Teeth, who list “Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, Inuit throat singing, Korean P’ansori, Georgian singing and Sardinian cantu a tenore styles” among the ingredients of its unique acapella choral blend.

Stave off boredom. This is going to be a smoking festival.

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