Wednes­day August 1, 7:30PM

Tick­ets: $45 Gen­eral Admis­sion, $50 Table Seats, $75 Front Row VIP 

Com­poser, multi-instrumentalist and vocal­ist Taj Mahal is one of the most promi­nent and influ­en­tial fig­ures in late 20^th cen­tury blues and roots music. Though his career began more than four decades ago with Amer­i­can blues, he has broad­ened his artis­tic scope over the years to include music rep­re­sent­ing vir­tu­ally every cor­ner of the world – west Africa, the Caribbean, Latin Amer­ica, Europe, the Hawai­ian islands and so much more. What ties it all together is his insa­tiable inter­est in musi­cal dis­cov­ery. Over the years, his pas­sion and curios­ity have led him around the world, and the result­ing global per­spec­tive is reflected in his music. This year, in cel­e­bra­tion of 70 years of life Taj Mahal is tour­ing the globe, giv­ing every­one the chance to expe­ri­ence the won­der­ful tunes he has cre­ated in his lifetime.

In 2008, Taj joined the Heads Up Inter­na­tional label in time to cel­e­brate the world­wide release of Mae­stro: Cel­e­brat­ing 40 Years. As the title sug­gests, this twelve-track set marks the for­ti­eth anniver­sary of Taj’s rich and var­ied record­ing career by mix­ing orig­i­nal mate­r­ial, chest­nuts bor­rowed from clas­sic sources, and songs writ­ten by a cadre of highly tal­ented guest artists. His anniver­sary gala included per­for­mances by Ben Harper, Jack John­son, Ziggy Mar­ley, Angelique Kidjo, Los Lobos and oth­ers – many of whom have been directly influ­enced by Taj’s music and guidance.

“The one thing I’ve always demanded of the records I’ve made is that they be dance­able,” he says. “This record is dance­able, it’s lis­ten­able, it has lots of dif­fer­ent rhythms, it’s acces­si­ble, it’s all right in front of you. It’s a lot of fun, and it rep­re­sents where I am at this par­tic­u­lar moment in my life. This record is just the begin­ning of another chap­ter, one that’s going to be open to more music and more ideas. Even at the end of forty years, in many ways my music is just get­ting started.”

Once Min­u­tos (OM) had its start in Seat­tle Wash­ing­ton in 2005. OM is made up of Rebecca Gar­cia and San­dra Aguilar and guest artists. Their music is an Acoustic blend of eclec­tic Latin and folk rhythms among oth­ers. You can expect to be wooed by the rich­ness and depth of the vocals of this dynamic duo at any per­for­mance. OM is pas­sion­ate about the music that they do and are com­mit­ted to sow­ing the seeds of love and com­pas­sion through music which they believe is intrin­sic in con­nect­ing the heart strings of humanity.

Join­ing OM this evening will be Pablo Fer­rando & Gimena Fer­rando play­ing Tango and Argen­tin­ian Folk­lore. Ticket pro­ceeds with this event goes to sup­port OM in record­ing their new album.

Yaki­mas Got Tal­ent– The Finals

Sup­port the Sea­sons at the 4^th Annual YGT!
Tonight we will see the TOP TEN con­tes­tants selected from our pool of orig­i­nal tal­ents!  If years past are any indi­ca­tion, you will see the best in local per­form­ers and musi­cians and get to have a VOTE in who goes home with the first prize glory. The best part? This spir­ited evening goes to sup­port a good cause: Pre­sent­ing a breadth of  live music and pre­serv­ing a his­tor­i­cal facil­ity as a venue for a vari­ety of cul­tural activ­i­ties in down­town Yakima.
Tick­ets range in price from $50 seated tables with wine and hors d’oeuvres trays to $10 bal­cony seats.
We have two con­firmed Yakima’s Got Tal­ent Judges this year: John Gasperetti and Melissa Lab­ber­ton, the third judge is TBA.

Tonight we will see the TOP TWENTY con­tes­tants selected from our pool of orig­i­nal tal­ents! If years past are any indi­ca­tion, you will see a daz­zling dis­play of of the best in local per­form­ers and musicians.

Tick­ets for the semi-finals are $10

About the judges:

Local show­man and restau­ran­teur John Gasperetti has been soak­ing up the lime­light for years. He is well known to the Yakima com­mu­nity for his top notch Ital­ian Restau­rant, local phil­an­thropy, Christ­mas Cabarets, Memo­r­ial Fol­lies and numer­ous appear­ances in Ware­house The­atre pro­duc­tions. Between plan­ning lun­cheon menus, cater­ing wed­dings and mas­ter­ing the intri­ca­cies of his newest role at the Ware­house in “Dinner/Music”, Gasperetti always deliv­ers the very best to his patrons. Recently, Gasperetti appeared on the first episode of “Val­ley Fresh Fare”, com­peted in the YWCA fundraiser “So You Think We Can Dance” and will open his house for the 12^th annual Tour of Artists’ Homes.

Melissa Lab­ber­ton

Melissa Lab­ber­ton has been syn­ony­mous with all things dra­matic in Yakima for many years. Her hus­band Kurt is a play­wright who has writ­ten two orig­i­nal plays, Book­bound and Dinner/ Music, the lat­ter of which he directed and starred in. Melissa, a free­lance writer, act­ing coach, singer, dancer and actor was one of the pro­tag­o­nists in the recent Bookbound.

YGT Judge 3, TBA

Are you long­ing to sing in the spotlight?

Do you amaze on the dance floor?

Are you a per­for­mance artist, a stand up come­dian, a mime, or have any other unusual tal­ent that you would like to show­case at the 4^th annual Yakima’s Got Talent?

What­ever your age or forte, this is your chance to grab the main stage and be eval­u­ated by our dis­cern­ing YGT judges for a chance at win­ning 1000 cash prize. This year we will be divid­ing our con­tes­tants into two groups; those under 18 and those over. We are offer­ing 1,000 cash prize in both cat­e­gories, with a total of 2,000 in cash prizes to get your cre­ative juices flow­ing. So, let’s see your tal­ent Yakima! APPLY ONLINE TODAY!

From our orig­i­nal pool of con­tes­tants we will be choos­ing 10 from each divi­sion to star in the semi-finals on Thurs­day June 20 (7PM). 5 con­tes­tants from each divi­sion will the be selected to com­pete for the grand prize at The Finals Sat­ur­day June 23.

If you would like to par­tic­i­pate as a con­tes­tant, please review the below rules, fill out the online appli­ca­tion and com­plete the third step– Pay your reg­is­tra­tion fee.

You can pay online after you fill out your online appli­ca­tion, or you can visit us dur­ing box office hours prior to the event.

Yakima’s Got Talent Rules:

1) Have fun! We appre­ci­ate that our con­tes­tants have the courage to get up on stage for our yearly fundraiser and we strive to keep a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment through­out the competition.

2) For your per­for­mance dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary audi­tions on June 16 or 17, please limit per­for­mance time to 2 min­utes, with a set up and break­down of less than 5 min­utes. If your per­for­mance goes beyond these time lim­i­ta­tions, the judges may stop you in the mid­dle of your performance.

3)The judges need to see dif­fer­ent per­for­mances at each level of the event to advance con­tes­tants onto the next event. Be prepared.

4) The Sea­sons will pro­vide a grand piano, a micro­phone and a sound sys­tem, addi­tional props will need to be pro­vided at expense of con­tes­tant or explic­itly arranged by The Sea­sons Staff.

5) All con­tes­tants must attend the pre­lim­i­nary audi­tions to par­tic­i­pate in the finals and semi finals.

6) As this is a ben­e­fit for The Sea­sons Per­for­mance Hall, please use good taste in your per­for­mances. Inap­pro­pri­ate con­tes­tants will be disqualified.

7) Have fun and please note that though you may not agree, the deci­sion of the judges are final.

Are you long­ing to sing in the spotlight?

Do you amaze on the dance floor?

Are you a per­for­mance artist, a stand up come­dian, a mime, or have any other unusual tal­ent that you would like to show­case at the 4^th annual Yakima’s Got Talent?

What­ever your age or forte, this is your chance to grab the main stage and be eval­u­ated by our dis­cern­ing YGT judges for a chance at win­ning 1000 cash prize. This year we will be divid­ing our con­tes­tants into two groups; those under 18 and those over. We are offer­ing 1,000 cash prize in both cat­e­gories, with a total of 2,000 in cash prizes to get your cre­ative juices flow­ing. So, let’s see your tal­ent Yakima! APPLY ONLINE TODAY!

From our orig­i­nal pool of con­tes­tants we will be choos­ing 10 from each divi­sion to star in the semi-finals on Thurs­day June 20 (7PM). 5 con­tes­tants from each divi­sion will the be selected to com­pete for the grand prize at The Finals Sat­ur­day June 23.

If you would like to par­tic­i­pate as a con­tes­tant, please review the below rules, fill out the online appli­ca­tion and com­plete the third step– Pay your reg­is­tra­tion fee.

You can pay online after you fill out your online appli­ca­tion, or you can visit us dur­ing box office hours prior to the event.

Yakima’s Got Talent Rules:

1) Have fun! We appre­ci­ate that our con­tes­tants have the courage to get up on stage for our yearly fundraiser and we strive to keep a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment through­out the competition.

2) For your per­for­mance dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary audi­tions on June 16 or 17, please limit per­for­mance time to 2 min­utes, with a set up and break­down of less than 5 min­utes. If your per­for­mance goes beyond these time lim­i­ta­tions, the judges may stop you in the mid­dle of your performance.

3)The judges need to see dif­fer­ent per­for­mances at each level of the event to advance con­tes­tants onto the next event. Be prepared.

4) The Sea­sons will pro­vide a grand piano, a micro­phone and a sound sys­tem, addi­tional props will need to be pro­vided at expense of con­tes­tant or explic­itly arranged by The Sea­sons Staff.

5) All con­tes­tants must attend the pre­lim­i­nary audi­tions to par­tic­i­pate in the finals and semi finals.

6) As this is a ben­e­fit for The Sea­sons Per­for­mance Hall, please use good taste in your per­for­mances. Inap­pro­pri­ate con­tes­tants will be disqualified.

7) Have fun and please note that though you may not agree, the deci­sion of the judges are final.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

Join the Yakima Salsa Dance Com­pany Back stage at The Sea­sons next week for your end of the week Latin Dance Party with all the best Salsa, Cumbia, Bachata, Merengue!
If you don’t know how to dance yet and just want a refresher, join the sul­try Salseros for a free begin­ner les­son at 9:30, with music start­ing at 10:15PM
Serv­ing mar­gar­i­tas, and a vari­ety of beer and wine
Dress to impress and get salsa shoes out!

Tick­ets not avail­able for pre-sale $5 cover at the door.

$15 Pre-Sale   $18 Day Of Show

MEMORIAL HOSPITAL NIGHT: 1/2 PRICE WITH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ID

Clin­ton Fearon is a com­poser, writer, singer and player of instru­ments since his early teens and a pro­fes­sional since the age of 19.

He was born in Jamaica and become the well-known bassist, vocal­ist and lyri­cist for The Glad­i­a­tors as well as a house musi­cian for Cox­sonne Dodd’s Stu­dio One and Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark Stu­dio, two of the main pro­duc­ers of the island. He also com­posed some ever­last­ing basslines for well-known artists like Yabby You, Jimmy Riley, Max Romeo, Junior Byles and many others.

After leav­ing Jamaica and The Glad­i­a­tors’ band in 1987, Clin­ton Fearon set­tled in the United States, Seat­tle, Washington.

He founded Defend­ers with Jamaican musi­cians in the late 80’s and gave sev­eral shows in Seattle’s clubs with them. After the band split, Clin­ton Fearon formed the Boo­gie Brown Band with local musi­cians in 1993.

They recorded seven albums together: Dis­turb The Devil (1995), Mys­tic Whis­per (1997), What A Sys­tem (1999), Give And Take (2004), Vision (2006), Fac­ulty of Dub (2008) and Mi Deh Yah (2010), acclaimed as one of the ten best reg­gae albums of 2010 by media.

Clin­ton Fearon also recorded the solo acoustic album Mi An’ Mi Gui­tar in 2005. In 2012, he is pre­sent­ing his sec­ond acoustic album, Heart And Soul, which gath­ers most of the songs he did write dur­ing the time spent with the Gladiators.

Each song of Clin­ton Fearon is a strong mes­sage com­ing from the heart of a man who ded­i­cates his life to help a bet­ter world to come. With chis­elled music and poetic lyrics, he opens reg­gae to a wider audi­ence who sim­ply loves his beau­ti­ful songs.

Clin­ton Fearon is play­ing with the six musi­cians of Boo­gie Brown band or he in solo/duet acoustic set.
Clin­ton Fearon and Boo­gie Brown are play­ing from West to East cost in the US. They spread roots reg­gae around the world, mainly Canada, South Amer­ica and Europe.

You can see the name of Clin­ton Fearon on head­lines for many impor­tant musi­cal events such as Reg­gae Ris­ing Fes­ti­val, Bum­ber­shoot, Sierra Nevada Fes­ti­val, Lafayette Jazz Fes­ti­val, Amer­i­can Folk Fes­ti­val, Low­ell Folk Fes­ti­val, Garance Reg­gae Fes­ti­val, Reg­gae Geel and many more.

Today, Clin­ton Fearon is counted among Jamaica’s most tal­ented musi­cians by peers and pro­fes­sion­als in the Reg­gae music industry.

Spe­cial per­for­mance of the music of Charles Min­gus arranged for Sonando by Fred Hoadley with guests Thomas Mar­riott and Mark Taylor.

Sonando was founded in 1990 by Fred Hoadley and Lary Bar­il­leau to explore new direc­tions in the blend­ing of Afro-Cuban rhythms and Jazz. For over a decade, Sonando has per­formed orig­i­nal Latin Jazz at fes­ti­vals, clubs & con­certs through­out the North­west. Their first two record­ings, Sonando (1995) & La Rumba Esta Buena (1998), received air­play and crit­i­cal acclaim through­out the coun­try. Our third, Sonando Tres, was released May 16, 2006 on the Ori­gin Arts label, and is cur­rently being aired around the country.

Sonando’s reper­toire includes tra­di­tional & mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tions of Afro-Cuban styles such as Son, Changui, Bata &Rumba, as well as our sig­na­ture Latin Jazz. They per­form on folk­loric instru­ments such as bata, marim­bula, tres, con­gas,& shekere, as well as mod­ern jazz instru­ments includ­ing flute, sax, trom­bone, piano, bass, & drum­set. Our cur­rent lineup includes some of Seattle’s most expe­ri­enced musi­cians, including:

Fred Hoadley – piano & tres

Orig­i­nally from New Eng­land, Fred stud­ied music at Hamp­shire Col­lege and Berklee Col­lege of Music, where his teach­ers included Jaki Byard, Vishnu Wood, and Char­lie Bana­cos. He founded the Seat­tle salsa band Bochinche in 1983, which reigned as the Northwest’s favorite Salsa band through­out the 1980′s, and pro­duced the band’s first album in 1985. After Bochinche, Fred toured nation­ally with the West African band, Kukrudu, and founded the Seat­tle based Afro-Cuban jazz band, Sonando, whose 1994, 1998 & 2006 releases received crit­i­cal acclaim through­out the coun­try. Sonando received The Earshot Golden Ear Award for Best Acoustic Jazz Band of 2007, and was fea­tured in a cover story in the Novem­ber 2008 issue of Earshot Jazz Magazine.

Fred has per­formed with a long list of North­west Latin Bands includ­ing Expre­sión Latina, Yerbabuena, The Puentes Broth­ers, and Grupo Son. In 1990, he was com­mis­sioned by The City Cantabile Choir to write a suite for choir and Latin Jazz Ensem­ble. He has received grants and awards from The Seat­tle Arts Com­mis­sion for edu­ca­tional pro­grams and com­po­si­tion in 1996, and 1998, and the Seat­tle mayor’s Office of Arts& Cul­tural Affairs’ City Artist Award in 2011 for Sonando’s “Afro-Cuban Jazz Trib­ute to the Music of Charles Min­gus, which pre­miered at the Earshot Jazz fes­ti­val in Octo­ber 2011.. His love of latin music brought him to Cuba in 1983, 1990, 1993, and 1996, where he stud­ied piano and arrang­ing with Cesar Pedroso and Nel­son Diaz, and Cuban tres gui­tar with Anto­nio Perez and Guillermo “Boulet” Matalear. He cur­rently plays piano and tres in Sonando, Cam­bal­ache, Cha­ranga Danzón, The Susan Carr Ensem­ble, and Wesito & Friends. He also teaches piano, tres and Afro-Cuban jazz ensem­ble at Music­works North­west and Music Cen­ter Northwest.

Thomas Mar­riott – trumpet

Trum­peter Thomas Mar­riott is one of the most excit­ing musi­cians to emerge on the national jazz scene in more than a decade. The seven-time Golden Ear award win­ner is a skilled instru­men­tal­ist, com­poser and pro­ducer, always seek­ing to expand the bound­aries of jazz music in all its forms.

After win­ning the pres­ti­gious Carmine Caruso Jazz Trum­pet Com­pe­ti­tion in 1999, Mar­riott headed east from Seat­tle to New York where he gained ini­tial acclaim through his work with May­nard Ferguson’s Big Bop Nou­veau band. The diver­sity of acts Mar­riott has toured and recorded with high­light his ver­sa­til­ity. Char­lie Hunter, The Tito Puente Orches­tra, Rose­mary Clooney and Joe Locke are just a few of the artists to call on Marriott.

Thomas has recorded 7 albums as a leader on Ori­gin Records, 3 of which were “top-ten” albums on the jazz radio charts. Mak­ing Seat­tle hishome once again, Thomas con­tin­ues to per­form on the stages of the world’s great­est jazz clubs and con­cert halls as a leader and along­side some of the top names in jazz.

Chris­t­ian Pepin – congas

Chris­t­ian Pepin was born on Sep­tem­ber 23 in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico to Juan and Zun­dra Pepin. Com­ing from a great line of per­cus­sion­ists, this 3^rd gen­er­a­tion con­gero didn’t take long to fol­low along his family’s foot steps. His pro­fes­sional career began at age 16 when his first oppor­tu­nity to record appeared with a local band in the Seat­tle area. Chris­t­ian has been a part of var­i­ous live events such as The Puerto Rican Parade in New York City 2011,The Bite of Seat­tle, The Span­ish Sea Fair, Port­land, OR Salsa En La Calle Fes­ti­val just to name a few. In 2010, Chris­t­ian joined the Pearl Per­cus­sion and Soul­tone Cym­bals Fam­ily of Artists along side his grand­fa­ther Papo Pepin.

Junior Med­ina – timbales

Fran­cisco Med­ina Jr. in his 25-year career in music, Jr as most peo­ple know him, has per­formed and recorded with many dif­fer­ent bands such as Expre­sion Latina, Tum­bao, Seat­tle Reper­tory Jazz Orches­tra, Guaschará, Bochinche, Mambo Cadil­lac, Cha­ranga Danzón, Sonando, Jazz Police and Nueva Era.
Jr has also shared the stage with many top artists such as Tito Puente, Hilario Durán, Tito Allen, Grupo Gale, Pink Mar­tini, Sonora Dimanita, Mel­co­chita, Oscar De Leon, Lalo Rodriguez, Azabache, Sonora Car­ruse­les, Pon­cho Sanchez and Michael Stuart.

Jeff Nor­wood – bass

Jeff Nor­wood (bass) has been play­ing the bass since the age of 12 and has played every style from funk to punk, Bach to bebop, opera to musi­cal the­ater. After 15 years work­ing as a free­lance bassist in Cal­i­for­nia he relo­cated to Seat­tle where he has been able to put his long­time inter­est in Afro-Cuban music to work. He is a reg­u­lar mem­ber of Orches­tra Zara­banda, Johnny Conga and Tumba Caliente, and Con­junto Meneo, and con­tin­ues to work free­lance in latin, jazz and clas­si­cal set­tings. He has stud­ied with Ray Brown and Buell Nei­dlinger and is cur­rently pur­su­ing a Master’s degree in dou­ble­bass per­for­mance at the Uni­ver­sity of Washington.