(WAYNE, NJ) -- Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts’ Paterson Music Project (PMP) will perform with internationally renowned hip-hop duo Black Violin on Thursday, February 14 at 8:00pm at Shea Center for the Performing Arts at William Paterson University located at 300 Pompton Road in Wayne.
Following an afternoon concert for Paterson public school students and students from surrounding districts, revolutionary hip-hop duo Black Violin, known for a "hard-hitting beat with lush string sounds," will take the stage at 8:00 p.m. accompanied by their band and ace turntable whiz DJ SPS. Violinist Wil Baptiste and violist Kev Marcus combine a daunting array of musical styles from jazz, hip-hop and R&B to funk, bluegrass and classical. Using their signature sound often described as “classical boom” to break down stereotypes and cultural barriers, Black Violin will be joined by students from the Paterson Music Project for Simple Gifts arranged by Mark Woodward and Shaker based on variations of Simple Gifts arranged by Seth Truby and Mark Woodward. Black Violin has toured with Kanye West, Jay- Z and Linkin Park and has collaborated with Aerosmith, Wynton Marsalis and Elvis Costello. In January 2013, they performed for President Barack Obama at his Second Inauguration.
Tickets are $32 and $40 available online at www.wpunj.edu.
Based in Paterson, New Jersey, the Paterson Music Project (PMP) is an El Sistema-inspired program of the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts that uses music as a vehicle for social change by empowering and inspiring children through the community experience of ensemble learning and playing. PMP provides intensive, free musical training to students throughout Paterson after school. PMP launched its first site at the Community Charter School (CCSP) of Paterson in January 2013 with 32 second graders and has since added a new class of students each year. Since its inception, PMP has partnered with the Paterson Public Schools to open the Paterson Public School 1 and 26 site as well as the CCSP 21st Century Community Learning Center Program to start a winds and brass middle school program. Last year, PMP partnered with William Paterson University’s Music After School Program to create a central band site at the Norman S. Weir School to serve over 60 students. This year, Paterson Music Project is partnering with the Rosa Parks Performing Arts High School in Paterson to host the PMP Saturday Program which includes large ensemble rehearsal, Community Choir, Afro-Fusion Percussion Ensemble, and private lessons. There are now 200 students in the program across the city of Paterson grades 1-8.
The Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts’ mission is to provide the highest quality performing arts education to a wide range of students in a supportive and inclusive environment, where striving for personal excellence inspires and connects those we teach to the communities we serve.
Wharton is New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community performing arts education center serving over 1,500 students through a range of classes and ensembles including the 15 ensembles of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, which serve 500 students in grades 3 – 12 by audition. Beginning with Out of the Box Music and Pathways classes for young children, WIPA offers private lessons, group classes and ensembles for all ages and all abilities. We believe in the positive and unifying influence of music and the performing arts and believe that arts education should be accessible to all people regardless of their ability to pay. We teach all instruments and voice and have a robust musical theater program.
Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts is located in Berkeley Heights, New Providence and Paterson, NJ and reaches students from 13 counties. All of WIPA’s extraordinary faculty members and conductors hold degrees in their teaching specialty and have been vetted and trained to enable our students to achieve their personal best.
