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Past Events
Ritz Theater Presents The Michele Ramo Group
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| Michele Ramo |
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| Heidi Hepler |
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| Arturo O'Farrill |
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| Nilson Matta |
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January 31, 2009
On Saturday January 31st at 8 p.m. the Ritz Theater and La Bella Strings, in association with the Bardavon, continued the Tom Humphrey Guitar Series with a concert from The Michele Ramo Group. Led by eight-string guitarist, jazz violinist, mandolinist and composer Michele Ramo, The Michele Ramo Group also features Arturo O'Farrill on piano, David Silliman on drums and percussion, Nilson Matta on Contrabass and Heidi Hepler on vocals.
Ramo was born in a small fishing village on the coast of Sicily. His first performances were in the town square, playing guitar with the local barbers. He took up the violin at age 13, and by the time he was 17, his skills had progressed enough that he was asked to join the Italian State Symphony Opera House in Palermo. After five years in various Italian State Orchestras, Ramo moved to the United States in 1987 to pursue his work as a composer and instrumentalist. It was there that he first met Heidi Hepler, a singer, songwriter, and former Miss Michigan who was on her way to Rome to further her performance studies. After many years of chance meetings in Rome and Detroit, the two finally started performing together in 1994, and married soon after. They now tour the world over together, and have released several cd's on their own MoonBoat Records label.
When not performing as a duo with Heidi, or with The Michele Ramo Group, Ramo tours as a jazz violinist with guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli and as a guitarist with saxophonist James Carter's Chasin' the Gypsy Band.
Pianist Arturo O'Farrill, winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. In 2002, Mr. O'Farrill created the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center. His debut album with the Orchestra, Una Noche Inolvidable earned a Grammy award nomination in 2006. He has performed with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis and Harry Belafonte. In 1995 Mr. O'Farrill agreed to direct the band that preserved much of his father's music, Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which has been in residence at Birdland, New York City's famed nightclub, for the past 13 years.
Nilson Matta has long been considered one of Brazil's best bass players. Since his arrival in New York in 1985 he has become the first call of many of the top American musicians. Yo Yo Ma, who played with Matta on two Grammy winning albums, hails him as "a virtuoso!" His group Trio da Paz won the Jazz Journalists Association's "The Best Brazilian Jazz Album of the Year" Award for their 2002 album Partido Out.
Drummer and percussionist David Silliman is known for his astonishing versatility. The wide range of artists he has performed with includes Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Blossom Dearie, Cassandra Wilson, Al DiMeola and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
Ramo and his world class group invoke Gypsy caravans, Sicily, Andalusia, Brazil, Harlem and points in between. Detroit Jazz proclaimed "Ramo is a classical-jazz crossover artist in the truest sense of the word." Or as his friend Bucky Pizzarelli puts it "Ramo is the real thing!"
The Tom Humphrey Guitar Series serves to honro the memory of the legendary Hudson Valley-based luthier who passed away earlier this year. The idea for the concerts came from Tom Humphrey just two months before his death. In a series of meetings with Chris Silva of the Bardavon, richard Cocco, Jr. of La Bella Strings and Tricia Haggerty Wenz of the Ritz Theater and Safe Harbors of the Hudson, Humphrey laid the ground work for a guitar series at the Ritz Theater in Newburgh, which kicked-off with Odair Assad's solo guitar debut performance on June 14th followed on November 15th by a concert from the legendary Pete Seeger and his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger. On February 28th Bucky Pizzarelli will perform, along with Frank Vignola and Gene Bertoncini, and on April 25th Dennis Koster and some very special guests will perform an evening of Flamenco. The Tom Humphrey Guitar Series benefits the restoration of the famed, historic Ritz Theater.
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