Mike Blankenship

The idea of a concert devoted to wildly disparate arrangements of the same song has been on my mind for years now. I first had a chance to try it at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive a few years ago with an event called Debussy x 3. Debussy x 3 was a sold-out event which began with a traditional piano rendering of “Claire de lune”, moved into a stunning re-imagination on harp by Destiny Muhammad, and ended with a full-on radical deconstruction by my own group at the time. I feel like the The Freight is a perfect place to explore this concept via the vehicle of popular song. On October 26th we’ll launch our first edition of One Song All Night with five radically reimagined versions of Prince’s “Kiss”, all by talented Bay Area Artists: Hannah Mayree of the The Black Banjo Reclamation Project, R&B keyboard wizard Mike Blankenship (Lauryn Hill, Ledisi), Fulbright Scholar/Indigenous Avant-Gardist Anaís Azul, Pianist-Composer Tammy L Hall, and a cappella maestros Flex Duo (Bryan S Dyer and David Worm of Bobby McFerrin’s Motion). In 2026 we’ll have more fresh editions of One Song All Night, featuring local artists ranging from emerging to warmly familiar to very established artists who you might know from major music festivals, film, and TV. The featured songwriters and performers will be from all genres. I look forward to seeing you at the premiere of this new series! -PC Muñoz, Director of Programming