Voices for the Poppy: A Special Benefit Concert

If you love the Red Poppy Art House, then be there for this special evening occasion and make your support known. Hosted by Ethiopian-born songstress and TED Fellow Meklit Hadero, this unique musical program features an interweave of performances by jazz vocalist Tiffany Austin with Grant Levin on piano, songcraftsman Tom Sway, and instrumentalists Prasant Radhakrishnan, Todd Thomas Brown, Schuyler Karr, and acclaimed poet Michael Warr. 100% of the proceeds will go towards a fund supporting the Poppy’s core staff over the next five months until new funding comes in the spring. If you want to keep artists and art spaces thriving in our beautiful city, then come on down and be a part of the future of the Red Poppy Art House.

Doors at 7PM. Show at 7:30PM

Admission is $15-$50 sliding scale. Please select the ticket price level that best matches what you’re comfortable giving. Thank you for your support! Purchase advance tickets here.

Featured Artists:

Tiffany Austin
Vocalist, songwriter, and Los Angeles native Tiffany Austin possesses a soulful and subtle delivery, that has placed her onstage and onscreen with artists such as Roy Ayers and Marcus Shelby. Since completing her law degree at U.C. Berkeley, Tiffany has graced the stages of SFJAZZ, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. tiffanyaustinmusic.com

Tom Sway
Tom Sway is nothing short of a great American songwriter whose story-based lyrical compositions possess a rare poetic content with pools of emotion under every metaphor. Tom guides his audience with theateresque sensibility on a tour through nostalgia, laughter, the most delicate tones and an unbridled song- shouting frenzy.

Michael Warr
Poet Michael Warr’s most recent book of poems The Armageddon of Funk (Tia Chucha Press, 2011) received the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature and 2012 Poetry Honor Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In its announcement BCALA called his book “a poetic soundtrack to Black life.” Armageddonoffunk.com

Nefasha Ayer
Re-joining together for this one night are instrumentalists Prasant Radhakrishnan (saxophone) and Todd Thomas Brown (guitar) of the original ensemble Nefasha Ayer – The Space of In Between, a group founded by Brown and Meklit Hadero in 2006. This performance will especially highlight the expressive complexity of Prasant’s continued study of the South Indian Classical (Carnatic) and Jazz disciplines. prasantmusic.com

Host: Meklit Hadero
Born in Ethiopia, raised in the U.S. and nurtured by San Francisco’s richly diverse arts scene, Meklit Hadero, now a 2012 TED Senior Fellow, has served as an artist-in-residence at New York University, the De Young Museum, and the Red Poppy Art House. She has garnered feature-stories on NPR, PBS and National Geographic. She is a co-founder of the Nile Project, assisting to curate collaborations among musicians from the 11 Nile countries to address the Nile basin’s cultural and environmental challenges. meklithadero.com

Admission: $15-$50. Doors at 7:00 Show at 7:30. Purchase advance tickets here