Blues Harp Player Howard Levy To Perform at SMC

01/04/11

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SPARTANBURG, SC - World famous blues harp player Howard Levy will perform a free concert at Spartanburg Methodist College on Jan. 18 as part of SMC's Centennial Concert Series.

The concert is open to the general public and will be held at 7:30 pm in SMC's Camak Auditorium.

Universally acknowledged as the world's most advanced diatonic harmonica player, Levy  developed a fully chromatic style on the standard 10 - hole diatonic harmonica, revolutionizing harmonica playing and taking the instrument into totally new territory. He is also an accomplished pianist and composer, and plays many other instruments as well, including flute, ocarina, mandolin, saxophone, and percussion.

His musical adventures include journeys into jazz, pop, rock, world music, Latin, classical, folk, blues, country, theater, and film. He has appeared on hundreds of albums, won a Grammy (1997), won a Joseph Jefferson Award (1986) for Best Original Music for a Play, and has performed many times on American and European television and radio.

Levy is music director of Chévere, Chicago's hottest Latin-Jazz-Fusion Band, whose first CD was released on Balkan Samba Records. He also leads a 4 piece band called "Howard Levy's Acoustic Express", also with a new album to be released soon.

Levy will also conduct a same-day workshop on Jan. 18 at SMC on "How to Play the Blues Harp" - which is open to the public as well.

For more information on the artist, you can visit http://www.levyland.com

Spartanburg Methodist College is in its 100th academic year of providing quality education to students in a Christian environment.  More than 90 percent of SMC graduates continue their education at other institutions of higher learning.

For more information, contact Brian Fulkerson, director of public information, at (864) 587-4254 or publicinfo@smcsc.edu; or Briles Lever, professor of art and Centennial committee chairperson, at (864) 587-4279 or leverb@smcsc.edu

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