Raul Midón

Genre-bending icons Raul Midón and Lionel Loueke join forces to present a special night of song and guitar wizardry. The revered instrumentalists and vocalists will perform sets of original material in an evening that will culminate in an unforgettable jam. Heralded as a "one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus," (NY Times) Raul Midón has collaborated with such heroes as Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Jason Mraz, Queen Latifah and Snoop Dogg. Blind since birth, Midón produced-engineered his 2017 album Bad Ass and Blind using special computer software for the blind. The album, which confronts the challenges of his blindness with verve and grace, received a 2018 Grammy nomination in the category Best Jazz Vocal Album. Midón's 2018 follow up release If You Really Want, featuring the Metropole Orkest under the direction of Vince Mendoza, was nominated for a 2019 Grammy award in this same category. Benin guitarist and vocalist Lionel Loueke has received critical acclaim from both his idols and contemporaries on his latest release The Journey. Paul Simon raves that Lionel is "one of a rare handful of guitarists that move effortlessly between his West African roots and modern American Jazz", and Sting cites Lionel as "one the most original, essential and inspiring musicians on our planet today.” As a Blue Note Recording artist and member of Herbie Hancock's band for the past 10 years, Loueke has recorded and toured with artists as unique and varied as Terence Blanchard to singers Angelique Kidjo and Luciana Souza. Praised by Herbie Hancock as “a musical painter,” Loueke combines harmonic complexity, soaring melody, a deep knowledge of African folk forms, and conventional and extended guitar techniques to create a warm and evocative sound of his own