For Immediate Release:
October 12, 2016
Press Contacts:
Eileen Chambers/CSO
312-294-3092
Stephanie Kulke/Kick Start Marketing
773-501-4360
Photos available upon request
[email protected]
GRAMMY® AWARD-WINNER AND FOLK MUSIC ICON
JOAN BAEZ APPEARS AT SYMPHONY CENTER
Tuesday, October 25, at 8:00 p.m.
CHICAGO—Grammy® Award-winning singer-songwriter Joan Baez appears in a Symphony
Center Presents (SCP) Special Concert–An Evening with Joan Baez–on Tuesday, October 25,
at 8:00 p.m. The program includes acoustic music drawn from the Baez’s multi-decade career.
Joining Baez for this performance are musicians Dirk Powell (mandolin, piano, guitar, bass,
fiddle) Gabriel Harris (percussion) and Grace Stumberg (vocals).
A leader of the burgeoning folk boom of the ‘60s, Joan Baez is an artist whose musical
catalogue features a mix of traditional ballads and blues, gospel, lullabies, Carter Family songs,
Weavers and Woody Guthrie songs, cowboy tunes, ethnic folk staples of American and nonAmerican vintage and much more. Many of the songs introduced in Baez’s early albums found
their way into the rock vernacular including “House Of the Rising Sun” (The Animals), “John
Riley” (The Byrds), “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (Led Zeppelin), “What Have They Done To
the Rain” (The Searchers), “Jackaroe” (The Grateful Dead), and “Long Black Veil” (The Band),
to name a few.
Her five-decade-plus career began in the folk music coffeehouses of Boston and Cambridge as
a college student. She appeared onstage at the age of 18 at first Newport Folk Festival in 1959.
This led to an offer from offer from Vanguard Records, and she recorded her first solo LP Joan
Baez in 1960. In 2011 the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences inducted the album
into its prestigious Grammy® Hall Of Fame, and in 2015 the Library of Congress selected it for
preservation in the National Recording Registry.
Baez has been honored with a Grammy® Award, an ASCAP Centennial Award (2014), a TIME
Magazine cover (1962), the Order of Arts and Letters from Spain (2010), the Humanitarian
Award from the Children’s Health Fund (2010), a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Folk
Alliance International (2011), and the French National Order of the Legion of Honour medal,
representing her status as a Chevalier (Knight) in the Order (2011).
A musical force of nature with a global conscience, Baez has been a consistent activist for
causes ranging from civil rights to the anti-war movement that continues today with her
advocacy work for Amnesty International and The Innocence Project. Baez received Amnesty
International’s highest honor, its Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2015, in recognition of
her exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights. In 2012 at the Amnesty International
50th Anniversary gathering, she was presented with the inaugural Joan Baez Award for
outstanding Inspirational Service in the Global Fight for Human Rights.
Baez has teamed with The Innocence Project for her fall 2016 U.S. Tour to bring awareness to
Death Row inmates who have been wrongfully convicted. Chicago area volunteers from the
Innocence network will be in the lobby with information on specific incarcerated individuals in
Illinois who are fighting for justice.
In 2016, Baez was honored by a dozen of her favorite artists and friends for a 75th birthday
tribute concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York and produced by WNET TV for their awardwinning Great Performances series (the special aired on Chicago’s WTTW TV in August of
2016). The evening featured more than 20 songs spanning her career and included many
greats of country, soul, rock and folk performing with Baez.
Tickets for the SCP Special Concert, An Evening with Joan Baez, are available in person at
Symphony Center, 220 South Michigan Ave., by calling the Symphony Center Box Office at
312-294-3000, or online at cso.org.
Discounted student tickets for select concerts can be purchased, subject to availability, online in
advance or at the box office on the day of the concert. For group rates, please call 312-2943040.
Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.
###
Symphony Center Presents
Special Concert
Tuesday, October 25, 2016, 8:00 p.m.
An Evening with Joan Baez
Joan Baez, vocals
Dirk Powell, mandolin, piano, guitar, bass, fiddle
Gabriel Harris, percussion
Grace Stumberg, vocals
Program to be announced from the stage
Tickets: $30-$85
ARTIST INFORMATION
Joan Baez
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: www.cso.org and www.csosoundsandstories.org/
Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest
orchestras in the world. Since 2010, the preeminent conductor Riccardo Muti has served as its 10th
music director. Yo-Yo Ma is the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant, and Samuel Adams
and Elizabeth Ogonek are its Mead Composers-in-Residence.
From baroque through contemporary music, the CSO commands a vast repertoire. Its renowned
musicians annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago and, each
summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. They regularly tour nationally and internationally. Since 1892,
the CSO has made 59 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents.
People around the globe listen to weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings on the WFMT
radio network and online at cso.org/radio. Recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards,
including two in 2011 for Muti’s recording with the CSO and Chorus of Verdi's Messa da Requiem (Muti’s
first of seven releases with the CSO to date). Find details on these and many other CSO recordings at
www.cso.org/resound.
The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which also includes the Chicago
Symphony Chorus (Duain Wolfe, Director and Conductor) and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training
ensemble for emerging professionals. Through its prestigious Symphony Center Presents series, the
CSOA presents guest artists and ensembles from a variety of genres—classical, jazz, world, and
contemporary.
The Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO offers community and education programs that annually
engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds. Through the Institute and other
activities, including a free annual concert with Muti and the CSO, the CSO is committed to using the
power of music to create connections and build community.
The CSO is supported by thousands of patrons, volunteers and institutional and individual donors. The
CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family
Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the
Negaunee Music Institute.