Trio of performers to light up Doudna

Roberto Hodge, Multicultural Editor

The Doudna Fine Arts Center will be wrapping up its Touring Event series with three musical performances at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Dvorak Concert Hall.

The event, which is happening during Eastern’s annual Celebration, will feature Switchback, Robinella and Twangtown Paramours. Each will be performing their own separate show following a performance by all three at the end of the night.

Dan Crews, the director of patron services, said this is a first time for two of the bands Robinella and Twangtown Paramours, while Switchback is a returning performance.

Crews said he’s been a fan of Robinella for about 10 years and is excited to see her perform for the campus. Though he said he could not quite fit her in the musical genre of folk, Crews said she shares some aspects of it.

“She has a really sweet honey-sounding voice,” Crews said.

Robin Bailey, who is known as Robinella, is a Tennessee country and jazz musician. Most of her songs can be described as being a mixture of bluegrass and jazz blues with country added. Robinella recently released her latest album, “Ode to Love,” which consists mostly of love songs, according to the press release.

Crews said they get requests from all kinds of artists to listen to their albums, such as one of the artists from the band Twangtown Paramours, who reached out to Dwight Vaught, the assistant dean of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

The Twangtwon Paramours are a “hybrid” with Nashville and Austin musical scenes in terms of their sound and style. The band composed of members MaryBeth Zimmer and Mike Lewis have played at nationally recognized venues like Uncle Calvin’s in Texas, Caffe Lena in New York and Bluebird Café in Tennessee.

Brian Fitzgerald and Martin McCormack make up Switchback and have been performing their style of Celtic and Americana music for over 20 years.

Crews said it seemed like it would be a perfect match to put all the bands together for the night. He said many of the musical talents at Doudna center around fine arts, but in the past, they have had pop performers.

Crews said he would not mind getting more genres of performers like rappers, but because at max the theatre can sit less than 600 and those types of artists draw students in by the thousands, they usually do not have those opportunities.

Tickets to the performances will be $15 for general audience members, $12 for elderly and $7 for students.

 

Roberto Hodge can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]