Jan 13, 2020

The fiery Balkan brass band Slavic Soul Party!, known for blending superior virtuosity and spontaneous fun, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 24, at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. 

This is the fifth concert of the Friends of Good Music 2019/20 performance season.  

Designated as New York City’s official No. 1 band for Balkan-soul-gypsy-funk, Slavic Soul Party! is heralded for its irresistible beats, Roma (Gypsy) accordion wizardry, and virtuoso jazz chops. Its nine musicians pump the sounds of life through a Balkan brass filter, reimagining the tradition while making new music out of immigration, integration, and ingenuity.

The group’s longstanding residency at Barbes, regarded as one of Brooklyn’s coolest venues, is a hot ticket for music fans from around the globe. In more than a decade of touring North America, Europe, and beyond, SSP! has performed everywhere from Serbian schoolyards to prison courtyards, Turkish palaces to Russian baths, the Kennedy Center to Carnegie Hall to the Chicago Jazz Festival, and from Amsterdam to Zimbabwe.

The group’s most recent recording, “SSP! Plays Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite” (Ropeadope), its sixth album, is a “manifesto on cultural boundaries, historical lineage and how they play into individual creativity,” raved a review in The Wall Street Journal.

Before the concert the Quick Center will host a reception and activities for the Olean Area Young Professionals starting at 5:30 p.m.

Single tickets for this performance are $20 at full price, $16 for senior citizens and St. Bonaventure employees, and $5 for students. For tickets and information, call The Quick Center at (716) 375-2494.

For each Friends of Good Music performance, The Quick Center will open its galleries one hour before the performance and keep them open throughout the intermission. Regular gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Museum admission is free and open to the public year round. For more information, visit www.sbu.edu/quickcenter.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. In 2019, St. Bonaventure was named the #1 regional university value in New York and #2 in the North by U.S. News and World Report.