CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT PENN STATE

ONSTAGE©

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Today’s performance is sponsored by

Nancy VanLandingham, chairLam Hood, vice chair

Judy Albrecht William Asbury

Lynn Sidehamer BrownPhilip Burlingame

Deb LattaEileen Leibowitz

Ellie LewisChristine Lichtig

Mary Ellen Litzinger

Bonnie MarshallPieter OuwehandMelinda StearnsLillian UpcraftPat WilliamsNina Woskob

student representativesBrittany BanikStephanie CorcinoJesse Scott

Community Advisory CounCilThe Community Advisory Council is dedicated to strengthening

the relationship between the Center for the Performing Arts and the community. Council members participate in a range

of activities in support of this objective.

richard and sally Kalin

CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT PENN STATE

rosanne Cash The River & The Thread

Rosanne Cash, vocals and guitarJohn Leventhal, guitars, vocals, and music director

Kevin Barry, guitarsGlenn Patscha, keyboards

Zev Katz, bassDan Rieser, drums and percussion

7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9, 2015Eisenhower Auditorium

Tonight’s program will be announced from the stage.

The concert includes one intermission.

sponsors

Richard and Sally Kalin media sponsor

BIG FROGGY 101

Some photographs and moving images have been generously provided by: James Jaworowicz and The Jack Robinson Archive, Memphis,

Tennessee; Dave Anderson, Little Rock, Arkansas; Oxford American, A Magazine of the South; and The Library of Congress.

Rosanne Cash appears by arragement with Opus 3 Artists and Cross Road Management.

presents

The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state

agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

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THE RIVER & THE THREADWith The River & The Thread, Rosanne Cash has added the next chapter to a remarkable period of creativity. In 2015, Cash was awarded three Grammy Awards. The River & The Thread won for Best Americana Album and the track “A Feather’s Not a Bird,” which she co-wrote with her longtime collaborator (and husband) John Leventhal, won for Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song.

Her previous two albums, Black Cadillac (2006) and The List (2009), were both nominated for Grammys. The List—an exploration of es-sential songs as selected and given to her by her father Johnny Cash—was named Album of the Year by the Americana Music As-sociation. In addition, her bestselling 2010 memoir, Composed, was described by the Chicago Tribune as “one of the best accounts of an American life you will likely ever read.”  Rosanne Cash, who has charted twenty-one top-forty country singles, including eleven number ones, wrote all of the new album’s songs with Leventhal, who also served as producer, arranger, and guitarist. Featuring a long list of guests—from young guns like John Paul White (The Civil Wars) and Derek Trucks to legends such as John Prine and Tony Joe White—The River & The Thread is a kalei-doscopic examination of the geographic, emotional, and historic landscape of the American South. The album’s unique sound, which draws from country, blues, gospel, and rock, reflects the soulful mix of music that traces its history to the region.  

“When we started forming the idea for this record,” Cash says, “it felt like it was going to be the third part of a trilogy—with Black Cadillac mapping out a territory of mourning and loss and then The List celebrating my family’s musical legacy. I feel this record ties past and present together through all those people and places in the South I knew and thought I had left behind.”  The literal journey toward The River & The Thread began when Arkansas State University contacted Rosanne Cash about its inter-est in purchasing her father’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. A series of benefit concerts to get the project started featured artists such as George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Dierks Bentley, Willie Nel-son, and The Civil Wars.  While helping with the purchase and renovation of the Dyess house, Cash and Leventhal took several extended trips through the South-ern states—visiting William Faulkner’s home; Dockery Farms, the plantation where Howlin’ Wolf and Charley Patton worked and sang; and Natchez and the blues trail.

“The thread” in the album’s title comes from Rosanne Cash’s friend Natalie Chanin, a master seamstress in Florence, Alabama. “Nata-lie was teaching me to sew,” Cash says, “and she said, ‘You have to learn to love the thread,’ in this beautiful accent, and it hit me as an enormous metaphor.” The line appears in the album’s opener, “A Feather’s Not a Bird,” a deeply swampy shuffle that Cash describes as “a mini-travelogue of the South and of the soul.”

The journeys repeatedly took Cash and Leventhal through Memphis, Tennessee, the city of her birth and a place that had a profound impact on the album’s direction. They visited the studio of Sun Records and watched their son strum a guitar in the same room where her father cut his first record. “The connection to Memphis is powerful and deep,” she says. As the themes and subjects of The River & The Thread emerged, Cash gradually envisioned how she wanted to connect the dots into a cohesive work, connecting her own story to the rich history of a region. “I guess I weave in and out of these songs, in a way,” she says. “I don’t think I had a complete map of it, but John really became a guide. We would write something and say, ‘This is part of the geography, both emotional and physical.’”  Cash acknowledges that, even with fifteen albums and four books behind her, it was difficult to start writing songs again after spend-ing several years immersed in the masterful compositions featured on The List. “You cannot keep that in your mind, except as an inspi-ration, a standard to aspire to,” she says. “To say, ‘I’m going to write

a song as great as ‘Take These Chains’—you’re not. So the only way to not get dismantled by that is to stay connected to your own muse and immerse yourself completely in what you’re doing, so it can be as rich and authentic as it can possibly be. That’s all you can hope for.”  With The River & The Thread, she has risen to that challenge and emerged with a beautiful and haunting album, one of the finest works in an extraordinary career.

WHo’s WHoJOHN LEVENTHAL (guitars, vocals, and music director) is a Grammy Award-winning musi-cian, producer, songwriter, and recording engineer who has produced albums for Rosanne Cash, Michelle Branch, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne, Marc Cohn, Rodney Crowell, and many others. As a musician, he has worked with all of the above as well as artists such as Elvis Costello, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Hornsby, and Charlie Haden. As a song-writer, he has had more than 100 songs recorded by vari-ous artists. In 1998, he won the Grammys for Record and Song of the Year for producing and co-writing “Sunny Came Home” with Colvin. He lives with Cash, his wife, and their children in New York City.

KEVIN BARRY (guitars), a multi-instrumentalist based in Boston, teaches guitar at the Berklee College of Music and tours regularly with Rosanne Cash, Peter Wolf, Marc Cohn, and Ray LaMontagne. He has also per-formed and/or recorded with Jonatha Brooke, Mary Chapin

Carpenter, Susan Tedeschi, Mighty Sam McClain, Sarah McLaughlin, and the Consuelo Candelaria group. Along with acoustic and electric guitars, Barry has disciplines in lap steel, pedal steel, Dobro, bass, and high-strung requinto.

GLENN PATSCHA (keyboards), who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, moved to Louisiana in 1989 to study with Ellis Mar-salis at the University of New Orleans. He went on to play and record with many New Orleans icons young and old such as Brian Blade, Nicholas Payton, and Leroy Jones. A recording and touring stint with Marianne Faithfull reignited an interest in composing and songwriting. After moving to New York City in 1998, Patscha started the acclaimed band Ollabelle. T Bone Burnett signed the group to his Columbia Records imprint DMZ. Patscha has recorded and performed with Levon Helm, Sheryl Crow, Bet-tye Lavette, The Holmes Broth-ers, Cubanismo, Madeline Pey-roux, Roger Waters, Lizz Wright, Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson, Loudon Wainwright, and others.

He scored the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film Sangre De Mi Sangre with Brian Cull-man, the award-winning Finnish film Kukkulan Kuningas (On Thin Ice), and a number of short films by photographer Mary Ellen Mark and Martin Bell. Recently, Patscha has produced record-ings for The Holmes Brothers and Marc Cohn, plus a record with his new band The Big Bright with Fiona McBain (Olla-belle) and Liz Tormes.

ZEV KATZ (bass) first met and worked with Rosanne Cash in 1993 on her album The Wheel. Katz has been a friend and associate of John Leventhal’s since 1974. It is his pleasure to be accompanying them in sup-port of The River & The Thread. Katz has also played, toured, and/or recorded with a diverse group of artists, including Roxy Music, Bette Midler, James Taylor, Donald Fagen, Luciano Pavarotti, The Yellowjackets, Hall & Oates, Mavis Staples, Dr. John, and Ennio Morricone.

DAN RIESER (drums and per-cussion) has been active in the New York City singer-songwriter and jazz scenes since the early 1990s. He has performed and/or recorded with Norah Jones, Jesse Harris, Marcy Playground, Two Ton Boa, Chris Cheek, Seamus Blake, The Bloomdad-dies, The Little Willies, Jenny Scheinman, Marc Cohn, Rebecca Martin, and Madeline Peyroux. Rieser appears on Rosanne Cash’s album The River & The Thread and Foreverly, the recent acclaimed collaboration

between Jones and Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong.

MIRIAM NILOFA CROWE (lighting designer and operator) designs regularly for Latin Grammy- and Grammy-winner Lila Downs, Ko-Ryo Dance Theater, The Drilling Company, and Strindberg Rep. Her recent projects include home/sick (The Assembly), Honky (Urban Stages), The Penalty (Apothetae), What it Means to Disappear Here (Ugly Rhino), Gorilla (SATC), RescYou (Eckert+SorensonJolink), Project RUIN (Carlye Eckert and Lucie Baker), Bridesburg (Miscreant Theater), Symphony for the Dance Floor (Daniel Bernard Roumain), Life after Dark (Dana Leong), Flags (Firefly Theater @ 59E59), Woman in Waiting (Farber Foundry), Beowulf (Lincoln Center Festival), and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Yale Rep). She is a founding member of Wingspace Theatrical Design. www.wingspace.com/miriam D. J. MENDEL (video designer), a longtime collaborator with Rosanne Cash, directed and video designed her previous two concert tours, Black Cadil-lac and The List, and the music videos for her songs “Mother-less Children” and “I’m Moving On.” He also designed the video for her Art and Ideas keynote speech at the 2013 Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in New York City. Mendel has directed two of world-renowned composer and

violinist Daniel Bernard Rou-main’s music-theatre pieces, Darwin’s Meditation for the Peo-ple of Lincoln and Symphony for the Dance Floor. Both shows premiered at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Acad-emy of Music in New York City and toured the United States. For nine years Mendel has directed all of Cynthia Hopkins’ work, including the award-win-ning Accidental Nostalgia (Obie Award), Must Don’t Whip ’Um, The Success of Failure (Bessie Award), The Truth: A Tragedy, and This Clement World. Each Hopkins show premiered at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York City and went on to tour the United States and Europe. Mendel has directed two fea-

ture films—Make Pretend, which he wrote, and Planet Earth: Dreams, written by avant-garde theatre legend Richard Fore-man—plus numerous shorts films.

DAVID MANN (sound mixing and tour manager) has been on the scene as a recording engineer and live sound mixer for many years. His list of asso-ciations is a who’s who of the music industry. Emmylou Har-ris, Paul Simon, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Herbie Hancock, Suzanne Vega, Aimee Mann, Marc Cohn, Ingrid Michaelson, and The Waterboys are only a few of the artists with whom he has worked. Mann has worked with Rosanne Cash since 2011.

CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT PENN STATE

CAMELOTTHE STORY AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE

7:30 P.M. MONDAY, APRIL 20EISENHOWER AUDITORIUM

cpa.psu.edu 814-863-0255

support provided byEisenhower Auditorium

Endowment

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Nancy L. HerronLam and Lina HoodCindy and Al JonesChick KingJames and Bonnie KnappJames and Barbara KornerJohn and Michelle MasonPatrick W. and Susan N. MorseMarcia and Bill NewtonSteve and Anne PfeiffenbergerJack and Sue PorembaPatricia Hawbaker QuinlivanAndy and Kelly RenfrewShirley SacksSally L. SchaadtRussell and Jeanne SchleidenPaul and K. C. SheelerVaughn and Kay ShirkSusan and Lewis SteinbergMarilynne W. StoutKenton StuckMark and Anne ToniattiElizabeth TrudeauGeorge and Debbie TrudeauMark and JoAnne WesterhausMary Jane and William WildCharlotte Zmyslo

PARTNER

$250 TO $499

Steve and Chris AdamsWilliam W. AsburyDr. Deborah F. AtwaterSven and Carmen BilénAlan BrownRoger and Corinne CoplanLee and Joan CoraorStephanie Corcino

MeMbersThe Center for the Performing Arts recognizes the following members for their support. For information on the membership program or how you may contribute to the Center for the Performing Arts, please contact Dave Shaffer at 814-863-1167 or DaveShaffer@psu.edu.

LEADERSHIP CIRCLE

$3,000 AND MORE

Lynn Sidehamer BrownMimi U. Barash CoppersmithMarty and Joan DuffBlake and Linda GallRobert and Helen HarveyBob and Sonia HufnagelRichard and Sally KalinDan and Peggy Hall LeKanderBarbara PalmerDotty and Paul RigbyLouis P. Silverman and Veronica A. SamborskyGeorge and Nina Woskob

DIRECTOR’SCIRCLE

$2,000 TO $2,999

Patricia Best and Thomas RayLynn Donald BreonJanet Fowler Dargitz and

Karl George StoedefalkeRod and Shari EricksonEdward R. GalusArnold and Marty GascheDonald W. Hamer and Marie BednarBeverly HickeyHoney and Bill JaffeKay F. KustanbauterEileen W. LeibowitzTom and Mary Ellen LitzingerPieter W. and Lida OuwehandWilliam RabinowitzRobert Schmalz

ENCORECIRCLE

$1,000 TO $1,999

Pamela M. AikeyGrace M. Bardine Mary and Hu BarnesPhilip and Susan BurlingameEdda and Francis G. GentryRichard B. GidezJudith Albrecht and Denny GioiaDavid and Margaret GrayMichael P. Johnson and

Maureen MulderigStan and Debra LattaBenson and Christine LichtigKenneth and Irene McllvriedKaren and Scott ShearerJackson and Diane SpielvogelCarol and Rex WarlandTerry and Pat WilliamsDavid and Diane Wisniewski

ADVOCATE

$500 TO $999

Ned and Inga BookJack and Diana BrenizerSandra Zaremba and Richard Brown Richard Carlson and Lori ForlizziJoseph and Annie DoncseczMichael T. and Ann F. DotseySteve and Sandy ElbinMark A. FalvoNancy S. GambleJohn and Carol GrahamBill and Connie HayesSteven L. Herb and

Sara Willoughby-Herb

Bold listings represent members who increased their donations by 10 percent or more this season. Be Bold! Contact Dave Shaffer, assistant director for special programs, at 814-863-1167.

Jo DixonMargaret DudaHeather F. FleckPamela FrancisPeg and Joe FrenchCatherine GreenhamAndrea HarringtonSue HaugDawn E. HawkinsDale T. HoffmanAnne HummerChristopher and Gail HurleyJohn and Gina IkenberryAllen and Nancy JacobsonLaurene Keck and Dave SweetlandJohn and Gretchen LeathersDebra LeithauserFran E. LevinJack and Ellie LewisDorothy and Kenneth LutzRichard and Juanita LysleJodi Hakes McWhirterSusan and Brian McWhirterJim and Sharon MortensenJoe and Sandy NiebelEva and Ira PellMartena RogersMike and Joan RoseberrySally L. SchaadtRobert and Peggy SchlegelTom and Carolyn SchwartzDave Shaffer and Eve EvansJohn and Sherry SymonsShawn and Amy VashawGary and Tammy VratarichBarbara R. and Joel A. WeissSue WhiteheadDavid and Betsy WillSharon and Carl WinterCraig and Diane ZabelDr. Theodore ZiffCal and Pam Zimmerman

FRIEND

$150 TO $249

Lynn and Ellis AbramsonShirley AllanAnne and Art AndersonScott and Sandy BalboniDr. Henry and Elaine BrzyckiJohn Collins and Mary BrownJohn M. Carroll and Mary Beth RossonGeorge and Bunny DohnSteven P. Draskoczy, M.D.Terry and Janice EngelderBarry and Patti FisherFrank and Vicki ForniBob and Ellen FrederickAndris and Dace FreivaldsDavid and Kay GreenBethlyn and Scott GriffinCharlie and Laura HackettElizabeth Hanley and

Patrick KolivoskiJohn Lloyd HansonBetty Harper and Scott SheederIn Memory of Bob HarveyAnn and Tom HettmanspergerJackie and John HookJim and Susan HouserSteven and Shirley HsiDaniel and Kathleen JonesEd and Deb KlevansJohn F. KneppHarry B. Kropp and

Edward J. LegutkoThomas Kurtz and Grace Mullingan-KurtzMark and Theresa LaferFred and Louise LeoniakSharon and David LiebBob and Janice LindsayHerb and Trudy LipowskyJane and Edward LiszkaNancy and John LoweSandy and Betty MacdonaldHelen ManfullDeborah Marron Betty McBride-ThueringSherren and Harold McKenzie

Tom Caldwell Memorial FundDon MillerJune MillerGary and Judy MitchellBetty and John MooreChris and Bobbie MuscarellaRobert F. and Donna C. NicelyClaire M. PaquinGuy and Grace PilatoProforma LLH Promos, LLCAndrew and Jean Landa PytelEd and Georgia ReutzelPhil and Judy RobertsSusan J. ScheetzThe Shondeck FamilyDonald Smith and Merrill BudlongAllan and Sherrill SonstebyCarol Sosnowski and

Rosemary WeberBarry and Ellen SteinJoLaine TeyssierJames and Deena UltmanStephen and Jennifer Van HookNancy and Wade VanLandinghamAlice Wilson and FriendsDavid L. and Connie Yocum

THE JAZZ TRAIN

$250 AND MORE

Help us continue to present world-class jazz artists by becoming a member ofThe Jazz Train. For details, contact Dave Shaffer at DaveShaffer@psu.edu or 814-863-1167.

William W. AsburyPatricia Best and Thomas RayDavid and Susan BeyerleLynn Donald BreonPhilip and Susan BurlingameDavid and Lisa CogginsGordon and Caroline DeJongJim and Polly DunnEdward R. GalusArnold and Marty GascheCharlene and Frank Gaus

PARTNER (CONT’D)

$250 TO $499

endowMenT ConTribuTors$150 AND MORE

We recognize the following donors who have contributed to endow-ments at the Center for the Performing Arts in the past year. For more information about how to contribute to existing endowments, contact Dave Shaffer at 814-863-1167 or DaveShaffer@psu.edu.

John L. Brown Jr. and Marlynn Steele Sidehamer Endowment

The Sturtz-Davis Family

Nina C. Brown EndowmentPamela M. Aikey

Richard Robert Brown Program EndowmentRichard Brown and Sandra Zaremba

Norma and Ralph Condee Chamber Music EndowmentRobert and Dorothy CecilWilliam F. and Kathleen Dierkes Condee

Honey and Bill Jaffe EndowmentHoney and Bill Jaffe

McQuaide Blasko EndowmentMr. and Mrs. James Horne

Penn State International Dance Ensemble EndowmentElizabeth Hanley and Patrick Kolivoski

John and Michelle GroenveldLee Grover and Anita BearSteven L. Herb and

Sara Willoughby-HerbAnne and Lynn HutchesonHoney and Bill JaffeBrian and Christina JohnsonMichael P. Johnson and

Maureen MulderigCindy and Al JonesRobert Martin and Kathy WeaverKathleen D. Matason and

Richard M. SmithRandi and Peter MenardDr. Marla L. MoonWilson and Maureen MosesWilliam and Annemarie MountzLarry and Kelly MrozJack and Sue PorembaSally L. SchaadtDavid and Ann Shallcross-WolfgangDan and Melinda StearnsDennis W. and Joan S. ThomsonDan and Linda TreviñoBarbara R. and Joel A. WeissCharlotte Zmyslo

visionEnriching lives through inspiring experiences

missionThe Center for the Performing Arts provides a context, through artistic connections, to the human experience. By bringing artists and audiences together we spark discovery of passion, inspira-tion, and inner truths. We are a motivator for creative thinking and examination of our relationship with the world.

Front cover photos: 1. Diavolo Kenneth Mucke 2. Antibalas Marina Abadjieff 3. Imago Theatre’s Frogz Jerry Mouawad 4. SISTER ACT © 2014 Joan Marcus 5. Cyrille Aimée 6. The King’s Singers Axel Nickolaus 7. Time for Three Sherry Ferrante 8. THE CHIEFTAINS Kevin Kelly 9. Brussels Jazz Orchestra’s Graphicology Philip Paquet 10. eighth blackbird Luke Ratray 11. Rosanne Cash © Clay Patrick McBride 12. Theatreworks USA’s The Lightning Thief Jeremy Daniel 13. Brooklyn Rider Sarah Small 14. CAMELOT 15. The Nile Project Matjaz Kacicnik    

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George Trudeau, director

Lea Asbell-Swanger, assistant director

Annie Doncsecz, finance director

Tracy Noll, sales and development services director

Laura Sullivan, marketing and communications director

Amy Dupain Vashaw, audience and program development director

Shannon Arney, assistant ticket manager

Erik Baxter, multimedia specialist

Shannon Bishop, downtown ticket center manager

Len Codispot, sales and development accounting coordinator

Gary Collins, production supervisor

Aimee Crihfield, contracts/logistics coordinator

Medora Ebersole, education and community programs manager

Lisa Faust, audience services manager

Deanna Heichel, assistant finance director

Tom Hesketh, events manager

Wanda Hockenberry, assistant to the director

Christine Igoe, ticket manager

Urszula Kulakowski, art director

Heather Mannion, advertising associate

Sherren McKenzie, group sales coordinator

John Mark Rafacz, editorial manager

Dave Shaffer, assistant director for special programs

Chad Swires, production supervisor

Mark Tinik, production supervisor

Center for tHe Performing Arts stAff

CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT PENN STATE

Brooklyn Rider7:30 P.M. TUESDAY, APRIL 14

SCHWAB AUDITORIUM

cpa.psu.edu I 814-863-0255 “Four classical musicians performing with the energy of young rock stars.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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