Wednesday July 28, 2010 7:00 PM

SummerStage
Queensbridge Park
Queens, NY

Olu Dara, veteran avant-garde player combines jazz, simple blues and Caribbean dance rhythms with his unique cornet and trumpet playing to depict stories about life’s simple joys.

Olu Dara Jones is an avant-garde jazz artist known for his eclectic mix of blues, reggae, Caribbean rhythms and funk that connects the dots between his small Mississippi rural hometown and modern urban life. His fusion of free-form jazz with deep blues creates a sound Rolling Stone has describes as a “kind of unpretentious cross-cultural hybrid that feels like real life… music powered by beating hearts and energized by radical collisions.” Dara’s vignette, “Jungle,” from his album In the World From Natchez to New York features his son, rapper Nas, and is a prime example of his ability to link African music with other genres, including hip-hop narratives.

FREE!

Tuesday July 27, 2010 7:00 PM

SummerStage
Queensbridge Park
Queens, NY

The Summer Recital Series continues on July 27 in Queensbridge Park, Queens, with an evening of favorite arias and duets performed by soprano Monica Yunus, tenor Matthew Plenk, and bass-baritone Donovan Singletary, accompanied by pianist Jonathan Kelly.

Monica Yunus made her Met debut in 2003 as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro and has since performed in six operas at the Met, most recently as Papagena in Julie Taymor’s celebrated production of Die Zauberflöte. Yunus’s other recent engagements include performances as Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore at Opera East Texas and, last September, as Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera at Washington National Opera.

Matthew Plenk, currently in his third year in the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, made his Met debut in 2008 as the sailor’s voice in Tristan und Isolde, conducted by James Levine, and has since performed the role of the Song Seller in Il Tabarro. Most recently at the Met, Plenk performed the role of Marcellus in Hamlet, seen around the world live in HD. Next season at the Met, he takes on the role of Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor and makes his debut at the Atlanta Opera as Ferrando in Così fan tutte.

Donovan Singletary, winner of the 2006 National Council Auditions and member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, made his Met debut in 2008 as a Nazarene in Salome. That same season, Singletary made his Carnegie Hall debut in Mark Hayes’s Te Deum. The American bass-baritone returned to the Met in 2009 as Pinellino in Gianni Schicchi. Singletary is the first prize winner in the 2009 Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition, the Mount Dora Festival Competition, and the Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actors’ Competition.

Jonathan Kelly has served as an official accompanist for the San Francisco Opera Center, Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, and Chicago Opera Theatre. Kelly has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at Kirk in the Hills, the National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall, and for the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Zankel Hall.

FREE!

Wednesday July 21, 2010 7:00PM

SummerStage
Queensbridge Park
Queens, NY

Pharoahe Monch is one of underground hip-hop’s pre-eminent lyricists, crafting intricate and intelligent rhymes and having the ability to match them to the beats rolling off the turntables.

Pharoahe Monch is a Queens-based hip-hop artist best known for his complex delivery and multisyllabic rhyme scheme. This helped win him a reputation as one of underground hip-hop’s pre-eminent lyricists, crafting intricate and intelligent rhymes and having the ability to match them to the beats rolling off the turntables. His 1999 single “Simon Says” became a massive hit among rap and club audiences, securing Monch’s collaboration with some of hip-hop’s biggest players.

FREE!

Thursday July 15 7:00 PM

SummerStage
Queensbridge Park
Queens, NY

Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith of EPMD are famed as one of the breakthrough bands of the 1980’s NYC hip hop revolution.

Once described as “the rap equivalent of a rock & roll garage band,” EPMD (“Erick and Parrish Making Dollars”) are famed as one of the breakthrough bands of 1980s hip hop. Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith grew up together on Long Island, home to rappers Eric B. and Rakim, De La Soul, and Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav. In 1987, while on a college break, Smith recorded with Sermon the duo’s raps, which they had first performed together the previous year. EPMD immediately released the songs as a 12-inch single which sold 500,000 copies. Within six weeks of its release, their first full length LP, Strictly Business, had topped the R&B album chart and gone gold. Later hits included “You Gots to Chill,” “Crossover” and “Strictly Business.”

DJ Funkmaster Flex sets trends. His name is known around the world and for more than a decade Funkmaster Flex has reigned as America’s number one music radio personality, reaching more than two million listeners a week from his show on Hot 97. When he’s on the air, an estimated 10% of everybody tuned into a radio in the metropolitan New York area is listening to him. Flex was recently named America’s best DJ for 2009 by The Urban Music Awards. In addition to his on-air work, Flex also does prominent voiceover work for videogames and has hosted television programs for ESPN, MTV and Spike TV.

FREE!