CONCERT UPDATE
Six-Time GRAMMY® Winner BeBe Winans Added to Lineup for Nashville Symphony’s ‘Nat King Cole at 100’ Concerts on April 16-18
Gospel great joins Patti Austin, Terri Lyne Carrington, Brandon Victor Dixon and Jared Grimes, an all-star band and orchestra for highly anticipated celebration of Cole’s music and legacy
Nashville, Tenn. (March 2, 2020) — The Nashville Symphony has added six-time GRAMMY® Award winner Benjamin “BeBe” Winans to the lineup for the FirstBank Pops Series concerts Nat King Cole at 100, taking place April 16-18 at Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
Winans joins a powerhouse lineup that includes GRAMMY® winner Patti Austin, Brandon Victor Dixon (vocals), Jared Grimes (vocals & dance) and GRAMMY® winner Terri Lyne Carrington (music director & drums), all performing with the Nashville Symphony on a program that will feature some of Cole’s most iconic songs accompanied by historic video footage.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
The seventh child of the Detroit-based “first family of gospel music,” multi award-winner BeBe Winans is best known as an inspirational R&B vocalist and songwriter who, along with his musical partner and sister CeCe Winans, became the first true Christian crossover artist to hit the mainstream. He has released eight albums with guest appearances from friends as diverse as Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, David Foster and Anita Baker, including Need You in 2019, his first solo album in nearly a decade. An accomplished author who has also acted in films and onstage, Winans is currently working on bringing his critically acclaimed original musical, Born for This, to Broadway. Born for This, which chronicles Winans’ life in music, recently garnered him the NAACP Theatre Award for Best Playwright.
Patti Austin first rose to prominence with a performance at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater when she was only 4 years old. She has released more than two dozen albums in her career while working with a who’s-who of music royalty – including Michael Jackson, Paul Simon and Quincy Jones – and “Baby, Come to Me,” her 1982 duet with James Ingram, hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts. Austin’s Avant Gershwin won the GRAMMY® for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2008.
Terri Lyne Carrington made history in 2013 as the first female musician to win a GRAMMY® in the category of Best Jazz Instrumental Album, one of three GRAMMY® wins for the drummer, composer, singer and record producer. She has performed with such jazz luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz, and she toured with Herbie Hancock from 1997 to 2007. Carrington recently released her ninth album with her band Social Science, Waiting Game, to worldwide critical acclaim.
Actor, singer and producer Brandon Victor Dixon is known for originating his TONY®-nominated role of Harpo in the Broadway musical The Color Purple and his Berry Gordy Jr. in the GRAMMY® and TONY -nominated Motown: The Musical. In 2018, Dixon starred as Judas in NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live!, earning a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.
Jared Grimes made his choreography debut in Cirque Du Soleil’s Banana Shpeel and has danced alongside legends like Wynton Marsalis and Gregory Hines, as well as Common, Salt-n-Pepa, En Vogue, Busta Rhymes and The Roots. He also toured with Mariah Carey and performed for both Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Grimes is currently on Broadway in The Soldier’s Play, and can be seen in the recurring role of Adrian Shannon on NBC’s “Manifest.”
Tickets for Nat King Cole at 100 may be purchased:
- Online at NashvilleSymphony.org
- Via phone at 615.687.6400
- At the Schermerhorn Symphony Center Box Office, One Symphony Place in downtown Nashville
The GRAMMY® Award-winning Nashville Symphony has earned an international reputation for its innovative programming and its commitment to performing, recording and commissioning works by America’s leading composers. The Nashville Symphony has released more than 30 recordings on Naxos, which have received 24 GRAMMY® nominations and 13 GRAMMY® Awards, making it one of the most active recording orchestras in the country. The orchestra has also released recordings on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and New West Records, among other labels. With more than 140 performances annually, the orchestra offers a broad range of classical, pops and jazz, and children’s concerts, while its extensive education and community engagement programs reached 45,000 children and adults during the 2018/19 season.
###
