FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For
Additional Information,
Please
Contact: Rosemary Gill
Zeiterion Performing Arts Center
684
Purchase Street,
New
Bedford, Massachusetts 02741
508-997-5664 ext. 21 rgill@zeiterion.org
Mayra Andrade And Ivo Pires Band
To Perform During New Bedford’s Cape Verdean Recognition Week
On
July 3, 2008 at 7pm, 2008, Mayra Andrade, the 2008 BBC World Music
Award Winner joins Cape Verdean Hall of Famer Ivo Pires Band in
concert to celebrate New Bedford’s Cape Verdean Recognition
Festivities. Beginning with The 4th annual male fashion
show on June 14th and culminating with The Cape Verdean
Recognition Day Parade on July 5th;
Cape
Verdean Recognition Week celebrates Cape Verdean independence
and heritage in New Bedford. Two dollars from every concert ticket
benefits the Cape Verdean Scholarship Fund.
Singer-songwriter, Mayra
Andrade has been tapped as heir apparent to the great Caesaria
Evora. At just 23, she is one of a new generation whose music
sounds like a love letter to her island roots, and explores a wide
range of Cape Verde¹s indigenous styles. Carrying her deep, warm
and velvety voice, she switches with remarkable ease from Morna to
Funana and Coladeira to Batuque. Her personality and talent bring a
true breath of freshness to the music of the Cape Verdean islands --
the legacy of a blend of African rhythms and those of the Old
Continent.
At the age of 16, Mayra won
the Gold Medal in the Francophonie Games held in Canada competing
against 35 other contestants. The song she sang was from her own
country, in Cape Verdean Creole. Cape Verde would thus win its first
golden medal ever obtained at an international competition. She
recently was awarded three BBC world music awards for her album
‘Navega”
There
is something magical about Ivo Pires’ talent, both as an
instrument maker and a musician. He is, on the one hand, the most
in-demand violinist and bandleader on the Cape Verdean party and
wedding circuit, On the other hand, he is the man who repairs
stringed instruments for the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, members of the
Boston Symphony, and professors at New England Conservatory.
Pires was born in Brava, one of the smallest of nine islands in Cape
Verde. A lover of music, he was always inspired when he would see
musicians walking in the streets with instruments slung over their
backs and always admired how the instruments were shaped, the sound
of them and everything about them. At the early age of eight, he
made his first ukulele. At the age of eleven, adult musicians
started bringing Ivo with them to weddings to play in their band.
Everyone knew him in the island because of his music and
craftsmanship. When he came to America and settled in the New
England area his reputation
Continued
preceded him. He continues to perform in bands and make many
instruments. Many of his instruments he sends to the Cape Verde
Islands for the people there.
CAPE
VERDEAN RECOGNITION WEEK ACTIVITIES
June
14 4th Annual Male Fashion Review at the New Cape
Verdean Band Club
June
26 Scholarship Awards Banquet
June
29 Memorial Mass, noon, Our Lady of the Assumption
Church, 6th Street, New Bedford
June
30 Flag raising at New Bedford City Hall, 11am
July
1 Opening of Cape Verdean Recognition Exhibit: New
Bedford Public Library, 6:00 PM
July 3 Mayra
Andrade and Ivo Pires Band Concert-Zeiterion Theatre, New Bedford
July
5 Cape Verdean Recognition Day
Parade
MAYRA
CONCERT TICKETS $25 and are on sale now. Two dollars from every
ticket benefits The Cape Verdean Recognition Committee’s Scholarship
Fund. Purchase online at
www.zeiterion.org,
by phone 508-994-2900, or in person at the Zeiterion Performing Arts
Center’s box office located at 684 Purchase Street, New Bedford, MA
02740. Box Office Hours: M-F 10am-5pm, Sat 10am-3pm and 1 hour
before each performance.
###
