Béla Fleck: Rhythm, Raga & Rhapsody

Saturday, May 4, 2024

Doors: 7 PM  | Show: 8 PM 

Carnegie Hall – 881 7th Ave. Manhattan 

Tiered Pricing – $30 | $35 | $45 | $55 | $65 | $85 | $115 | $135

Co-presented with Absolutely Live Entertainment

 Béla Fleck: Rhythm, Raga & Rhapsody

Béla Fleck featuring

Eric Jacobsen & The Fleckharmonic

My Bluegrass Heart (Michael Cleveland, Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz & Bryan Sutton)

Zakir Hussain – Honorary WMI Board Member 

Bruce Hornsby

Anat Cohen

Béla Fleck has virtually reinvented the image and sound of the banjo through a remarkable legacy that has taken him all over the musical map. Rhythm, Raga & Rhapsody will celebrate the music of Fleck’s career, including his New York premiere of “Rhapsody in Blue” performed with an orchestra, conducted by Eric Jacobsen. The multi-artist night features My Bluegrass Heart, tabla master Zakir Hussain, pianist Bruce Hornsby, and woodwind player Anat Cohen.

The evening’s duet segment with Bruce Hornsby will pay tribute to Béla’s duets with the late pianist Chick Corea, captured on the upcoming Remembrance album. Remembrance, a new double album out May 10th, serves as a moving final document of the profound creative and personal rapport that Fleck and Corea first showcased on 2007’s Latin Grammy-winning The Enchantment. It’s a crucial addendum to Corea’s legacy, featuring three previously unreleased Corea compositions as well as five short free improvisations, or impromptus, that Fleck has infused with written music.

Ustad Zakir Hussain is widely considered to be one of the greatest tabla players of all time and globally recognized not only as a tabla virtuoso but also as a composer, music producer, percussionist, and film actor. He has received the highest awards given by the Indian government such as the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhusha, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award; as well as multiple Grammy Awards and the NEA National Heritage Fellowship for his contributions to Indian classical music and percussion. He is also a WMI Honorary Board member.

The COLLABORATIONS series presents cross-cultural musical explorations and collaborations. This series often explores ways in which the music of artists from one culture have influenced the music of another culture, or the music of seemingly widely varying cultures can be strikingly similar or complementary.