Arizona Musicfest 2023-24 Season Concerts and Shows

CW7 Arizona

Complete Arizona Musicfest 2023-24 Schedule  • Paul Anka: Seven Decades Tour: Jan. 5-6, 2024.  • The Barricade Boys: Leading Men of London’s West End: Jan. 12, 2024.  • Neil Berg’s 50 Years of Rock & Roll Part 4: Jan. 19-20, 2024.  • Jazz at Lincoln Center: Sing & Swing: Jan. 29, 2024.  • Doo Wop Project: Feb. 2-3, 2024.  • Classical Mystery Tour: 60th Anniversary of the Beatles Coming to America!: Feb. 5, 2024.  • A New World A-Comin’ featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Lara Downes: Feb. 12, 2024.  • Kristin Chenoweth: Feb. 17, 2024.  • Moon River and Me: Centennial Celebration of Henry Mancini starring Monica Mancini: Feb. 19, 2024.  • MozART Group: Feb. 27, 2024.  • Rhapsody in Blue: Festival Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio: March 3, 2024.  • Superman, Schumann & Strauss featuring the Festival Orchestra: March 5, 2024.  • Festival Orchestra POPS with Telly Leung and Loren Allred: March 8, 2024.  • Renée Fleming with the Festival Orchestra: March 10, 2024.  • Gunhild Carling: March 12, 2024.  • Rita Moreno: In Conversation: March 16, 2024.  • Judy Collins: March 22, 2024.  • Ladysmith Black Mambazo: March 25, 2024.  • Trailblazing Women of Country: From Patsy to Loretta to Dolly: April 1, 2024.  • World Doctors Orchestra benefitting the St. Vincent de Paul Virginia G. Piper Medical Clinic: April 5, 2024.  • Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain: April 15, 2024.  • Hotel California: A Salute to the Eagles: April 26, 2024.   Most concerts are at either Highlands Church or La Casa de Cristo Church. The Musical Instrument Museum and Pinnacle Presbyterian Church are hosting one performance each. Ticket prices vary; many shows start at $39.  Buy tickets and get more information at https://azmusicfest.org.

Transcript

00:00 Well, I'm telling you, Phoenix, Greater Phoenix, Metro Phoenix has been such a great show business

00:08 town.

00:09 Such terrific concerts.

00:11 Performers wanted to come here over and over and over again.

00:14 And they do, and they continue to with such success that friends of ours went to see Paul

00:23 Anka just a few days ago and came out of it saying, "Did you ever see him perform?"

00:31 And they were raving about this concert.

00:33 Well, wait a minute.

00:34 It's your concert, isn't it?

00:35 He was at Arizona Music Fest.

00:37 That's right.

00:38 Alan Naplan, CEO of Arizona Music Fest, welcome back to Channel 7.

00:43 Thanks, Pat.

00:44 To talk about another one of those incredible seasons of yours.

00:46 Because you folks are really adding to the high standards of quality theatrics here in

00:54 the Valley by bringing these people in.

00:56 People like Paul Anka and...

00:58 Well, coming up, Kristen Chenoweth, the wonderful Broadway star.

01:03 Opera luminary Renee Fleming, Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell, folk icon Judy Collins.

01:09 A lot of really wonderful artists coming up.

01:12 Rita Moreno.

01:13 And Rita Moreno, of course.

01:14 That's right.

01:15 And please excuse me, but she's been here, had a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation

01:21 with her on the air.

01:23 And just looking across the table at her, at her age and the quality of performance

01:29 that she still gives, one of the sexiest, talented people in show business.

01:35 Right.

01:36 And her endurance at age 92, the fact that she's still making movies, amazing.

01:41 I was going to keep that for the audience.

01:43 But you know, you think 92, what, is somebody helping her out?

01:47 No, no.

01:48 This is a vital, exciting Anita.

01:51 That's right.

01:52 So we're going to have a conversation with her on stage.

01:54 What does that mean?

01:55 So, you know, typically we only do concerts on stage.

01:58 Rita Moreno, understandably, is no longer doing concerts, but is going to talk all about

02:03 her career.

02:04 And a retrospective of her career, hosted by Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who's the new founding

02:08 director of the Sidney Poitier Film School at ASU, and she was the president of the Academy

02:13 of Motion Pictures, the Oscars.

02:15 So she'll be on stage with Rita talking about her career.

02:19 We'll have multimedia doing a retrospective of her career.

02:22 It's very exciting.

02:23 Kristen Chenoweth, however, probably may drop a couple of wicked songs.

02:27 Oh, I'm sure.

02:28 Of course.

02:29 She'll be performing all of the great Broadway hits that she's done, and so much of the repertoire

02:33 from her career.

02:34 But when I'm looking, though, at the booklets that you make available to the audience, and

02:41 you see not only those stars, immediately familiar faces, but also folks that are not

02:47 physically familiar.

02:49 But if you know anything at all about the entertainment world, you say, oh, they're

02:53 coming like.

02:55 Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

02:56 No, say that again.

02:57 The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, which is the leading, and I should say there are

03:02 many ukulele orchestras of the world.

03:05 This is the leading ukulele orchestra of the world.

03:08 But don't think of orchestra in the way of classical music.

03:10 They're playing classic rock on nine ukuleles and singing, and it's a humorous show.

03:16 It's a really fantastic act.

03:18 And we're excited for them.

03:20 The Mozart Group, where they take classical music and humor and put it all together.

03:25 So those are sort of two perhaps unexpected concerts, and we're delighted to present them.

03:30 And a couple of more, because the variety is amazing.

03:33 Well, trailblazing women of country.

03:35 So we're going to celebrate Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton with two of

03:40 the now up-and-coming stars of country music.

03:43 It's an all-female cast putting on this show.

03:46 We have stars from jazz at Lincoln Center coming.

03:49 Bria Skonberg and Benny Binock, they are both fantastic jazz singers and jazz trumpeters.

03:54 We have, as I mentioned before, Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell singing Gershwin and

03:59 Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington tunes.

04:03 There's so much coming up at Music Fest.

04:04 And on the subject of Gershwin, you have a very special evening.

04:09 One of my absolute favorite pieces of music.

04:11 It's actually appearing twice.

04:12 This is the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue.

04:15 And on that concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell, the great pianist Lara Downs is going to play

04:19 it.

04:20 And later on, Marcus Roberts Trio, a jazz trio, is joining our festival orchestra to

04:25 play Rhapsody in Blue.

04:27 There are some folks that just got here from Ishpeming and they're saying, "Look, I'm new

04:33 to the Valley, but I've got to be a part of this Music Fest season," which just began,

04:39 by the way, and it's going through April.

04:43 So would you please let folks know before they start calling me at the house?

04:48 Go to azmusicfest.org where you can learn not only about our concerts, but also our

04:54 lifelong learning program called Music Alive.

04:56 Every week we have five or six programs happening at our facility in North Scottsdale so you

05:01 can engage in music.

05:02 We have great activities for young musicians where we celebrate aspiring young musicians

05:08 that want to become major musicians and we're thrilled to help them on their journey.

05:13 Those two elements are charitable elements in the community where we can do that because

05:17 of the success of our concert season.

05:19 We're around activities, but the concert series goes through the beginning of April.

05:25 The end of April.

05:26 The end of April.

05:27 Yeah, that's right.

05:28 And you can find out all about how you can be a part of it by contacting Music Fest.

05:31 And by the way, that's Arizona Music Fest and Music Fest is one word.

05:36 It is, and azmusicfest.org.

05:39 Okay.

05:40 I don't know how much more we can give for Grind Out Loud, so maybe it's time for you

05:44 to just say, "Thank you, Pat."

05:46 Thank you.

05:47 Thank you.

05:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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