The Lounge Lizard BINGO Holiday Hour
A Mistle-toast to the Season!
Saturday, December 18th @ 8:00 PM
The concert is made possible with generous support from Genre Underwriters, Greg & Deb Bolino.
The Lounge Lizard Bingo Holiday Hour comes to audiences live and in person this Saturday at the Kerrytown Concert House! Co-hosted by pianist R. MacKenzie Lewis and vocalist Curt Waugh, this special edition of LLB – A Mistle-Toast to the Season – will feature a wide variety of holiday Fa-la-la-la favorites, along with general mischievousness, nostalgia, bingo, and trivia (all while trying to be more nice than naughty)! Special bonus – for the first time, the LLB masterminds will team up with some of KCH’s “Young Lions” for an epic KCH crossover!
www.LoungeLizardBingo.com
COVID-19 Safety Policy for Indoor Concerts
- Moving forward, all patrons and artists who wish to attend or present performances indoors at KCH must provide a valid, complete COVID-19 vaccination card OR proof of a negative COVID-19 test performed within the previous 72 hours prior to entry. Such proof must be presented at concert check-in, may be displayed on a smartphone OR presented as a physical copy, and must also be accompanied by a matching, valid ID for verification.**
- Additionally, according to current CDC recommendations, masks are required for audiences inside the House and can only be removed when seated with a beverage (when available). When performing, artists may wear a mask, or not, at their own discretion.
**Proof of vaccination exceptions will be made for children under 12 and people with a medical condition or closely held religious beliefs that prevent vaccination. These guests must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within the previous 72 hours prior to entry.
R. MacKenzie Lewis has been an arranger, composer, pianist, and music director in South East Michigan for nearly two decades. In addition to being the band leader with Ann Arbor’s own band Accidentally Hip, Lewis is the composer and music director for Eastern Michigan University’s School of Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts and a lecturer and accompanist with the School of Music and Dance. Some favorite theatre projects outside of university life include music directing and orchestrating the national tour and Off-Broadway premiere of The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, the Musical; Gypsy at the Hangar Theatre in New York (Broadway World Award for Best Music Direction); A Little Night Music at the Performance Network (Wilde Award for Best Music Direction); Legally Blonde at MSU (Pulsar Award for Best Music Direction); Irrational (Composer, Wilde Award for Best New Script); and Romance in Hard Times with William Finn at the Barrington Stage Co. He also composed music for Wings of Ikarus, Jason Invisible, and Mockingbird (two Helen Hayes nominations), all of which were commissioned and premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Lewis has also composed the musicals: Video Games: The Rock Opera, Treasure Island, Pinocchio, A Very British Christmas, Sugar Plum Panto, The Elves and the Schumackers, DJ Whittington – A Hip-Hop Panto, and Soaring on Black Wings, a world premiere with Ben Vereen.
Curt Waugh is a five-decade veteran of live performance and thrilled beyond words to be working again with the phenomenal R MacKenzie Lewis and KCH. You might remember Curt from his recent stint of emceeing the Wine, Women & Song fundraiser at the Ark in 2019. He’s been in shows and bands too numerous to mention. Mostly recently, he has been the lead singer of the world’s greatest garage band, Smitty Smitty Bang Bang. Over the years, Curt has been a huge supporter of local arts, helping to raise money for KCH, Ann Arbor Civic Theater and The Children’s Creative Center among others.
Kenji Lee is a saxophonist, composer, and educator based in Detroit, Michigan. Born in Tokyo, and raised in Southern California, Lee has proven to be an honest, versatile, and compelling musician rooted in the vibrant tradition of Black American music. His hope is to respectfully and reverentially represent the vast and momentous legacy of his heroes with personal authentic relevance as continuum.
Lee has had the immense privilege of performing with some of his heroes including Wayne Horvitz, Karriem Riggins, Robert Hurst, Rick Roe, Marion Hayden, Jeff Pedraz, Andrew Bishop, and Ellen Rowe. Additionally, he has performed at many acclaimed venues internationally including Carnegie Hall (NY), The Detroit Jazz Festival (MI), Renee & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall (CA), The Emmett Ray (Can), Jazzspot Intro (JP), Blue Llama Jazz Club (MI), Cliff Bell’s (MI), Jazz Central Studios (MN), The Royal Room (WA), Spaghettini’s (CA) and more.
Lee’s work is extensive and diverse, including Sakura (a mixed-chamber ensemble), Juarez – Lee – Alvarez (a straight-ahead trio), and Kenji Lee’s Clandestine Reality (a quartet focused on the critique of surreptitious coercion executed by many of the world’s most powerful and influential leaders).
His debut recording, darkhorse: the superhero, is available now at kenjilee.bandcamp.com
Kenji holds degrees from The University of Michigan in Jazz Studies and Music Education. He has studied saxophone and improvisation with Andrew Bishop, Wendell Harrison, Robert Hurst, Benny Green, Miles Okazaki, Ellen Rowe, Ingrid Jensen, Roger Shew, and Jeff Ellwood.
Aidan Cafferty is a bassist/composer based in Ann Arbor, MI. His passion for improvised music began at a young age, as he attended Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, a nationally recognized music department, where he played double bass in the Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Band and the Jazz Band. During Aidan’s senior year, Pioneer won the National GRAMMY Signature School Award as the best high school music department in the country.
Aidan continued to pursue his love for jazz at Michigan State University’s School of Music, where he spent four years studying under Rodney Whitaker. He received his bachelor’s degree jazz performance in 2015 and is currently attaining his master’s degree at University of Michigan where he studies with Bob Hurst and Andrew Bishop.
Cory Sibu Tripathy is a drummer, composer, and improviser based in Detroit. His musical practice uses new techniques and builds on older traditions, creating musical forms that reflect our current challenges and elicit the natural spontaneity of his collaborators to solve them. This is heard as (in alphabetical order) acoustic, chamber, cybernetic, dialogical, electronic, energetic, improvisational, intimate, introspective, liberating, meditative, social, solo, and traditional. The resulting musical projects are vast in scope, ranging from densely detailed composed musical forms, sculpted and sonically layered electro-acoustic environments for improvisation, open improvisatory structures, and everything in between. He received his BFA at the University of Michigan and his MA at Mills College. His mentors include Tomeka Reid, Zeena Parkins, Laetitia Sonami, James Fei, Michael Gould, and Andrew Bishop. His debut album, released in November 2021, can be heard on Bandcamp.
