Trailblazing Women of Country - A Tribute to Patsy, Loretta, and Dolly

Sunday, April 14, 2024 @ 7:00pm

McCarter Theatre Center (Matthews Theater)
91 University Place, Princeton, NJ 08540

If there were a Mount Rushmore of women in country music, it would undoubtedly include the faces of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton, three towering voices that have forever altered the course of the culture. Proving women artists’ commercial viability with chart-topping hits and record-breaking sales, these indomitable singer-songwriters wove threads of contemporary womanhood throughout the tapestry of country music. This tribute show, featuring soloists Miko Marks, Country Music Television’s 2022 “Next Woman of Country” and Nashville based singer Kristina Train, will perform works from the artists’ sizable discographies supported by a 5-member, all-woman band.

About the Singers

Miko Marks: The Wall Street Journal has described it as a “genre and industry-defying mission.” NPR declared it a “multilayered experience.” The New York Times commended the movement as carving out a new path in country music. All tell the story of Miko Marks’ resurgence as she deftly blends country, blues, southern rock and even gospel to create a sound and experience that has literally brought every audience to its feet. This new sound along with her warm and soulful spirit catapulted her into a community of change with her doing more than breaking ground – she’s shattering it. It’s a serendipitous realization that Marks was meant to be here, at this time, in this moment, for good.

Kristina Train: It is in the briefest of phrases, notes and words, that Kristina Train shows herself to be that all-too-rare thing: a singer who can take the simplest of lyrics and not only occupy them, heart-and-soul, but wring from them a level of emotion, conviction and intensity that has always sorted truly great singing from the merely average. As Kristina sings, you hear not only the immaculate phrasing and innate musicality, but the experiences – the joy and the heartache, the setbacks and the triumphs – that she brings to them. Singing was always this ingrained and significant for her, she says. “I’ve learned that the clichés about music and being musical exist for a reason. I was singing before I started speaking – it was a completely natural thing. As a child, it was always music, only music, always singing, only singing, and that’s all I cared about."