On Saturday, December 5, 2020, at 9 pm ET the world-famous Apollo Theater continues its support of emerging musical artists through its Apollo Music Café series, welcoming Madison McFerrin to the Apollo Digital Stage.
A chameleon of song and voice, Madison McFerrin has found her place as a storyteller and musician. With handclaps, loops, and finger-snaps, she weaves a warm, rich, colorful fabric of sound that often culminates into an orchestra of one. Questlove dubbed Madison’s style as “soul-apella.” The New York Times remarked, “she shows wonderful vocal dexterity, deftly swerving from sharp, clearly enunciated staccato bursts to fluttery, free-form melismata.” Beyond the Stage, Madison’s one-of-a-kind vocals can be heard in episodes of Comedy Central’s “Broad City” and HBO’s “Random Acts of Flyness.”
The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter made a name for herself with the release of her EP Finding Foundations Vol. 1. and Vol. 2., gaining the attention of DJs like Gilles Peterson and Anne Litt. Pitchfork magazine declared that Madison McFerrin is “making acapella cool again,” continuing on to highlight her in Pitchfork’s Rising Artist Showcase at Northside Fest, OctFest, and Paris Avant-Garde showcase.
The program is part of Apollo’s all-digital fall season. As a non-profit organization, the Apollo depends on generous funding from donors, foundations, and the community at large. Please consider donating to the Apollo Theater in support of these free virtual programs. To do so, please visit https://www.apollotheater.org/donate.
The legendary Apollo Theater—the soul of American culture—plays a vital role in cultivating emerging artists and launching legends. Since its founding, the Apollo has served as a center of innovation and a creative catalyst for Harlem, the city of New York, and the world.
With music at its core, Apollo’s programming extends to dance, theater, spoken word, and more. This includes the world premiere of the theatrical adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me and the New York premiere of the opera We Shall Not Be Moved; special programs such as the blockbuster concert Bruno Mars Live at the Apollo; 100: The Apollo Celebrates Ella; and annual Africa Now! Festival.
The non-profit Apollo Theater is a performing arts presenter, commissioner, and collaborator that also produces festivals, large-scale dance and musical works organized around a set of core initiatives that celebrate and extend Apollo’s legacy through a contemporary lens, including the Women of the World (WOW) Festival as well as other multidisciplinary collaborations with partner organizations.
Since introducing the first Amateur Night contests in 1934, the Apollo Theater has served as a testing ground for new artists working across a variety of art forms and has ushered in the emergence of many new musical genres—including jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, soul, and hip-hop.
Among the countless legendary performers who launched their careers at the Apollo are Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, H.E.R., D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Machine Gun Kelly and Miri Ben Ari; and Apollo’s forward-looking artistic vision continues to build on this legacy. For more information about the Apollo, visit www.ApolloTheater.org.
The Apollo Music Café 2020 programs will stream live on the Apollo Digital Stage (https://www.apollotheater.org/digitalstage/) and the Apollo’s Facebook page. Following the livestream, recordings of the events will be accessible on the Apollo Digital Stage. To RSVP for this free program, visit
https://www.apollotheater.org/event/apollo-music-cafe-madison-mcferrin/
Photo credit: Madison McFerrin Wikipedia.
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