In 1990, Doug Stone’s debut single, “I’d Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)” hurled the Newnan, Ga., native into country’s “top five” and forever etched his poignant and vulnerable vocal style into the psyche of country fans everywhere. Doug Stone is one of the pack of diverse artists, including luminaries such as Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks, and Travis Tritt, who have bulldozed country music's landscape and helped redefine the genre. Combine Stone's own noteworthy songwriting, a penchant for piercingly laconic material, innate working class sensibilities and his supple country baritone voice, and you end up with recordings that carry a uniquely powerful and direct emotional punch.
 

“One of the premiere jazz saxophonists playing today, Branford Marsalis plays with a subtlety of tone and phrasing only the finest interpreters can attain,” writes the Chicago Tribune. Marsalis,  is equally at home on the stages of the world’s jazz clubs as well as its classical halls. He weaves his way through genres from blues to pop to classical with a musical scope and innovative spirit of daring proportions in a never-ending effort to challenge perceived musical boundaries and limitations.

March 8
Casual Classics
7:30pm

December 6
Christmas Concert
7:30pm

The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra that refused to die and rose from the ashes through hard work, dedication and community support, finds a home on the north shore in a theater that has undergone an equally dramatic rags-to-riches rebirth.

The popular Tennessee Williams Festival, which Southeastern’s College of Arts and Sciences sponsors, takes a trip across the Lake to bring special performance of Suddenly Last Summer, directed by John Grimsley, to the north shore.
 

From the team that created the beauty and romance of The Secret Garden comes a vibrant  Broadway musical about the eternal search for freedom and adventure.
 Based on Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the musical Big River presents a whirlwind ride down the mighty Mississippi River, where the next turn is always unexpected. Written by legendary "King of Country Music" song-writer Roger Miller, Mark Twain’s unforgettable characters are brought vividly to life by the musical flavors of ragtime, blues, gospel, soul, folk and country.

Ballet Memphis is an "excellent" company that received a "well-deserved" $1-million Ford Foundation Challenge Grant with "dancers who exhibit a joy that travels over the footlights to infect everyone in the audience." These are just some of the accolades the company received from New York critics in April 2001, when Ballet Memphis became the first Memphis arts organization to perform on a New York City main stage. What New York critics saw was a fresh, free, nimble professional company of 24 dancers performing works created by world renowned choreographers. At the Columbia, Ballet Memphis will present a spirited program performed to music ranging from blues to classical to country.

With a distinguished career that has spanned more than half a century, Grammy-winner Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown has established himself as a legendary performer of breathtaking diversity and virtuosity. Not one to be pigeonholed, has stubbornly avoided labels while demonstrating his command of blues, jazz, cajun, country and swing. Gate has earned nine prestigious W.C. Handy Awards, the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s cherished Pioneer Award and  a Grammy in 1982 for his album “Alright Again!” In his most recent album,  “Back to Bogalusa,” the 77-year-old took his listeners back to his beloved Louisiana, focusing on his native state’s rich musical sounds while illustrating how effortlessly he jumps the boundaries of music and geographic regions.

North Carolina Dance Theatre's impressive reputation is based on superb dancers, high energy and a versatile repertoire ranging from full-length classical ballets to innovative contemporary works. In choreographer Mark Diamond’s A Streetcar Named Desire, a dark, intensely dramatic ballet inspired by Tennessee Williams’ play, Blanche DuBois, a worn and vulnerable beauty, tries to preserve her beautiful but dreamlike world of the past in a brash and decadent atmosphere of 1950s New Orleans. Hot jazz, contemporary and classical music heighten the experience of this dynamic production by a company that The New York Times calls "unstinting in range and thunder."

Innovative and dynamic, the Aquila Theatre Company has gained an international reputation as one of the foremost producers of touring classical theatre. Committed to a disciplined ensemble approach to classical texts designed to free the spirit of the original using both British and American performers, Aquila seeks to present fresh and inventive productions. For the 2002-2003 season, Aquila will bring to the Columbia Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a timeless comedy that has delighted audiences for centuries. Set against a classical Athenian backdrop, A Midsummer Night’s Dream deals with the universal theme of love, and with love’s complications: passion, lust, frustration, depression, confusion, and,  marriage. Through its  imaginative interpretation Aquila weaves a web of theatrical magic that will take an audience to the heart of an enchanted forest, the injustice of the Athenian court, and the political strife of the fairy kingdom. will renews the magic of Shakespeare’s plot.