This is a can’t miss for music lovers and Dilla fans….

In what is sure to be one of the year’s most inspiring music/art happenings, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony (WCFSO) on February 6th, 2010 at the Great Hall in the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center at the University of Northern Iowa will celebrate Black History Month and African-American achievement in orchestral music. Featuring the work of William Grant Still, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and  J Dilla, the evening will combine the art of Cedar Valley artist Gary Kelley and the music of these legends in a unique multimedia presentation.

This event will stretch audience expectations of the typical orchestral concert by featuring arrangements of hip-hop artist J Dilla’s music. Grammy nominated record producer J Dilla (James Yancey) was one of the music industry’s most influential hip-hop artists. He emerged from the mid-1990’s underground hip-hop scene in Detroit and worked for big-name acts like De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and Common. His rise as a solo artist in the early 2000’s was cut short when he died in 2006, at age 32. The WCFSO will perform selections from Suite for Ma Dukes, arrangements of J Dilla’s music created by composer/arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and featured last year in Los Angeles as part of the Mochilla/VTech Timeless Concert Series that paid tribute to J Dilla and his mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey.

Program for the evening:

William Grant Still: Symphony no. 1, ‘Afro-American’

James Yancey (J Dilla), arr. Miguel Atwood Ferguson: selections from Suite for Ma Dukes

Edward ‘Duke’ Ellington: The Three Black Kings

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Concert tickets start at $19 for adults and $9 for students.

For tickets, click here or call 319-273-4TIX or 1-877-549-SHOW or visit www.wcfsymphony.org.