Ruthie Foster - Opening Nights

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

RUTHIE FOSTER

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

CHANGING THE LIVES THAT CHANGE THE WORLD

Carlos

PLATINUM

GOLD

ERIC

SILVER

MIKEY

BRONZE

WELCOME TO OPENING NIGHTS

Opening Nights at Florida State University is excited to bring the very best performing arts, music, dance, comedy, literature and visual arts to our campus and community.

The second half of the 2023–24 season features critically acclaimed, award-winning artists and something for everyone in your family to love. GRAMMY® nominated Ruthie Foster will deliver a Texas blues show you do not want to miss. In March, the lineup continues with the best in music and stage beginning with Pink Martini, featuring China Forbes. Jazz at Lincoln Center takes center stage at The Moon with Sing and Swing, featuring renowned jazz artists Bria Skonberg and Benny Benack. Stage and screen legend Mandy Patinkin and award- winning author Jesmyn Ward will also perform. Emerging bluegrass artists Damn Tall Building will put on a show at Goodwood Museum and Gardens.

Finally, April brings multiple collaborations for the visual arts, music education, community outreach and family programs. The month kicks off with seven-time Grammy® Award winner Terence Blanchard

with the E-Collective and the Turtle Island Quartet, a special partnership event with the FSU College of Music.

April continues with our annual collaboration with the Chain of Parks Art Festival. Dean Mitchell is the featured artist this year. A partnership with Word of South will bring Rising Appalachia to town for a free community concert. Opening Nights will conclude its 2023–24 season with the iconic folk duo Indigo Girls on May 1.

We cannot think of a better time and opportunity to become a member of Opening Nights and to show your support of our mission to present exceptional artists. These performances create a thriving cultural life in our community and create priceless educational experiences on campus and throughout the community. Ask any Opening Nights associate about these philanthropic opportunities.

Thank you for sharing our season with us. We look forward to many more outstanding performances coming your way in 2024, Tallahassee’s bicentennial year.

Florida State University

Richard McCullough President

Opening Nights Staff

Allison Jordan Development Director

Grace Atkins Program & Operations Manager

Brad Lister Business & Patron Services Manager

Calla MacNamara Education & Engagement Manager

Noelle Enright Marketing & Communications Associate

Amanda Cole Senior Marketing Designer, University Marketing

Rodney H. Johnson Director of Digital Design & UX, University Marketing

Opening Nights Development Council

Eric Friall, Chair

Ron Sachs, Vice Chair

Gus Corbella, Immediate-Past Chair

Susan Stratton, Secretary

Kathleen Daly

Brooke Hallock

Heather Mitchell

Nan Nagy

Tom Nelson

Florida State University Partners

Office of the President

College of Fine Arts

College of Music

English Department

Challenger Learning Center

FAMU-FSU College of Engineering

University Relations

University Communications

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

FEBRUARY

29 Ruthie Foster Blues MARCH

2 iLUMINATE Family, Educational

4 Pink Martini with China Forbes World, Orchestra

7 Sing and Swing – A Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents Production featuring Bria Skonberg and Benny Benack III Jazz, Swing

9 Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Being Alive with Adam Ben-David on Piano Broadway, Vocalist

18 Jesmyn Ward Author

21

5

27

THEATRE TCC! 2023-24 SEASON COME JOURNEY WITH US!

Something Wicked This Way Comes

By Ray Bradbury

When the carnival comes to town, two boys unearth the terrifying and horrible secrets that lurk within Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show and learn the consequences of wishes, as a sinister and evil force is at work in Green Town, Illinois.

October 12-14 at 8 p.m.

October 20 & 21 at 8 p.m.

October 22 at 2 p.m.

The Shape of Things

By Neil Labute

A young student drifts into an ever-changing relationship with an art major while his best friend’s engagement crumbles, unleashing a drama that peels back the skin of two modern-day relationships.

November 16-18 at 8 p.m.

December 1 & 2 at 8 p.m.

December 3 at 2 p.m.

Legally Blonde

Book by Heather Hach

Music and Lyrics By Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin

The ultimate tribute to girl power, Legally Blonde will take you from the UCLA sorority house to the Harvard halls of justice with the timely coming-of-age story of Broadway’s brightest heroine.

April 4-6 at 8 p.m.

April 12 & 13 at 8 p.m.

April 14 at 2 p.m.

Herb & Mary Jervis

Congratulations Opening Nights for fostering the Arts in Tallahassee for the past 26 years.

The students, faculty, and staff of FSU and the citizens of north Florida have been enriched by your efforts.

We eagerly await what the next 26 years will bring.

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For more information & to become a member, visit openingnights.fsu.edu/support/ membership or contact Allison Jordan, Director of Development at 850.778.7139 or allison. jordan@fsu.edu.

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Sally Karioth & Amanda Karioth Thompson thank Opening Nights for their commitment to the arts in our community

Jim & Betty Ann Rodgers

Ken Kato & Nan Nagy

Proud Supporters of Opening Nights

Opening Nights, Opening Doors is a partner program of Prime Meridian Bank, FSU Opening Nights, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Big Bend. Now in its third year, the program provides on-campus experiences for Club members to inspire a vision of future opportunities in the areas of engineering, nursing, hospitality, and (coming soon) media and the arts.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29

Opperman Music Hall • 7:30 PM

Ruthie Foster

Ruthie Foster’s ninth studio album represents a new high water mark for the veteran blues artist—a collection of songs possessing pure power, like a tidal wave of musical generosity. Healing Time finds Foster pushing her boundaries as a singer and songwriter more than ever before, creating a truly livesounding atmosphere with the help of her band, who sound refreshingly loose and lived-in throughout these 12 songs. We’ve all been in need of some healing in recent times, and Foster’s latest provides a guide for how to move through the world with equal parts compassion and resolve.

Continued on pg. 19

“...a powerful and supple voice that sings with feelig and purpose.”

— Pop Matters

Sponsors

Ruthie Foster

Continued from pg. 17

Healing Time is the latest jewel in Foster’s accomplished career, which includes multiple Grammy nominations and collaborations with fellow luminaries like Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. For her latest, Foster contributed more to the writing process than she had on any of her previous albums, effectively refining her own songcraft in the process. “With this album, I dug deep and tried to go for the best way to write,” she explains. “This album says a lot about the period we were making it in, and how I wanted to find my way out of it.”

Work on the album began in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as Foster enlisted previous collaborators like Gary Nicholson and Grace Pettis to pitch in during the writing process—as well as every member of her band. “I wanted my band involved in the entire process of this album,” she explains, and they also played a large role in recreating the sound that Foster had become drawn to after spending time

with her vinyl collection. “I was aiming to keep these songs sounding like they came from that era, which says a lot about where I am in my life, too.”

Healing Time’s title—as well as its burst-ofsunshine title track, which features pedal steel legend Robert Randolph—is a reference not only to the trials many have faced over the last several years, but also the necessity of what Foster does as an artist. “I hear fans tell me that the music we make is very spiritually healing,” she says. “The experience of dealing with my own grief after losing a band member a year before the pandemic while navigating around zoom school with my daughter and trying to figure out what to do with myself was tough but necessary. When I look at it as a whole it was all very healing for me which is pretty much how I try to live my life. There’s always time for healing, if you give it time.”

And Healing Time is ultimately a work that explores such extremes as being human often brings to the surface, reminding listeners that even when we feel like we’re at the top, we’re ultimately still finding our way—a beautiful reflection of the essence of living itself.

PERINATAL

Dr. Adanna Amanze

Jonathan Brantley

Janet R. Thornton

@openingnights

@openingnights

@openingnights

Opening Nights at Florida State University

Law Office of Linda P. Bailey, P.A.

Gus

Berger Singerman proudly supports Florida State University's Opening Nights and its efforts in bolstering arts education within the Tallahassee community

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

MARCH

2 iLUMINATE Family, Educational

4 Pink Martini with China Forbes World, Orchestra

7 Sing and Swing – A Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents Production featuring Bria Skonberg & Benny Benack III Jazz, Swing

9 Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Being Alive with Adam Ben-David on Piano Broadway, Vocalist

18 Jesmyn Ward Author

21 Damn Tall Buildings Bluegrass

APRIL

5 Terence Blanchard featuring The E-Collective and Turtle Island Quartet Jazz

6 Dinosaur World Live! Family, Educational

18 Chain of Parks Art Festival Presenting Artist Dean Mitchell Visual Art

27 Rising Appalachia Rock, Blues

MAY

1 Indigo Girls Rock

Dinosaur World Live!

Dean Mitchell

Sing and Swing

Terence Blanchard