SUMMERTIME - and the Living is Easy!

Celebrating Music & Theater in the Summer Months

Deepest summer has arrived, and the West End Library is hosting a Summer Salon conversation to celebrate the best of summer music and theater with you!

The library invites you to a salon conversation with arts leaders. In this program, we will celebrate the music and theater of summer in song, story, and salon-style conversation. Told will be tales of performance experiences had behind the microphone, as well as both on and behind the stage.

Join your neighbors, community, the West End Library Staff, plus event partner American Purpose for a complete celebration of the the summer arts. Explore the songs of George Gershwin and others as shared by three scintillating DC personalities who inhabit the very center of the performing arts scene in Washington.

FEATURED PANELISTS

Michele Fowlin is a two-time graduate of Howard University (Bachelor and Masters) in Vocal Performance/Pedagogy with a piano minor. Ms. Fowlin has performed solo recitals across the U.S., U.S. Virgin Islands, Europe, and Russia. She is in her 18th season as the Artistic Director for Washington Performing Arts Children of the Gospel. She is also the Associate Director of Music for Contemporary Worship at The Washington National Cathedral. She has appeared on many main stages in the DC Metropolitan area as a soloist and conductor, including programs at The Kennedy Center, Strathmore Music Center, and The National Cathedral.

John Edelmann is an honorary trustee of the Arena Stage and has served as a trustee since 2016.  He is also the principal of the Edelmann Theater Group which invests and produces theater; most recently Funny Girl, Grace The Musical, and Thoughts of a Colored Man. 

Moderator Eric Felton formed the Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra in 1990, a big band known for its interpretations of the music of Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and other greats of the big band era. Mr Felton starred in The Big Band Sound of WWII, a concert special for public television. PBS calls Eric a "renowned crooner and bandleader." Based now in Washington, DC, Eric grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he began studying trombone at age nine with his grandfather, a veteran of east-coast bands from the Swing Era. 

With special thanks to Emily Harman for artistic support. Light refreshments will be served.

[Event image: Detail Quarantine Cruise by Dana Ellyn, painter. Used with permission]

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