The Alison Brown Quartet - "JazzGrass" Banjo & More, 5/5

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The Alison Brown Quartet, with its unique “JazzGrass” banjo sound, will perform on Friday, May 5, at 8:00 p.m. in the Anna Maria Ciccone Theatre at Bergen Community College, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ. Tickets are $22 for general admission and $20 for students and seniors (65+) and are available at 201-447-7428. Seating is reserved and advance ticket purchase is recommended.

Featuring the technically rich and highly musical banjo playing of Alison Brown, the Quartet is famous for its groundbreaking acoustic music which bridges the genres of bluegrass and jazz. Named “Banjo Player of the Year,” by the International Bluegrass Music Association and nominated for “2005 Instrumentalist of the Year,” by the Americana Music Association, Brown has blazed new trails through her composition and playing. She has recorded seven critically acclaimed solo albums including the 2001 Grammy winning “Fair Weather” and the Grammy nominated “Simple Pleasures.” She has received international acclaim for showcasing the banjo outside its familiar Appalachian roots, and for opening new frontiers to banjo players.

Brown began performing as a teenager and by the time she graduated from high school, she had traveled extensively playing at festivals and contests and had even recorded an album together with fiddler Stuart Duncan. She then took a detour in her professional music career to study history and literature at Harvard and to receive an MBA from UCLA. After two years working as an investment banker, she decided to return to her composition and recording career and has gone on to open whole new vistas for an instrument that was once solely associated with “pickin’ ‘n’ grinnin’.”

The Alison Brown Quartet is coming to Bergen Community College as part of the College’s Performing Arts Series, “This & That from Here & There.” Call Bergen’s Office of Community and Cultural Affairs at 201-447-7248 for a full schedule of events or visit them online at www.bergen.edu/community_events.

Bergen Community College is a public two-year coeducational college, enrolling more than 14,000 students in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in Applied Science degree programs, and certificate programs. More than 10,000 students are enrolled in non-credit, professional courses through the Division of Continuing Education, the Institute for Learning in Retirement, and the Philip J. Ciarco Jr. Learning Center, located at 355 Main Street, Hackensack. Information about the College is available on this Web site or by phoning the Welcome Center at 201-447-7200.


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