Dr. Michael White is one of todays primary exponents of classic New Orleans jazz. The unique experiences that the clarinetist has had throughout his career and his ability to articulate the significance and timelessness of the music has made him a highly influential force and performer. Having suffered tremendous losses due to Hurricane Katrina, White has emerged with what promises to be his finest CD, Blue Crescent. This set of new New Orleans music features him, like the Crescent City, determined to rebuild, keeping the classic style not only alive but continually creative, and looking towards both the past with loving memory and the future.

Meschiya began her singing career at the age of nine, earning a regular gig and winning $500 upon winning an adults only singing contest in a South Dakota Steakhouse. In 2000 as a young woman, she met and began traveling with the Know Nothing Family Zirkus Zideshow and End of the World Circus – a troupe blending traditional circus arts with modern sideshow varieties where Meschiya honed her performance skills with such thrilling acts as glass and insect eating and fire dancing (dangerously twirling around on stage with flame-doused nunchucks). It was while touring with this troupe that she fell in love with and felt immediately embraced by the culturally rich and one of a kind city of New Orleans, her home base for the last decade and counting.

A recently retired trapeze artist and teacher Lorelei started taking movement classes with Martha Graham dancer Willa Shulman in 1969 at age 4. A career in dance, both modern and jazz, lead to aerial dance and then to circus with a few breaks for injuries in between. Lorelei is proud to have been coached on static trapeze and rings by world renowned Elena Panova, on Tissu by Amanda Star Kelly and in character by Dominique Jando and Jeff Razz. Lorelei has performed in a variety of venues – theatres, nightclubs, museums and office buildings for a diverse array of causes (from Blue Water Network to Queeruption) and a multitude of troupes large and small (from Circus Finelli to Velocity Circus). Additionally Lorelei appeared in videos for San Francisco Vaudeville and the rock band You Said Saturday

Jazz Cat. Traditionalist. Pop Icon. Rapper. Rocker.

Shamarr Allen is none of the above. The New Orleans trumpeter and vocalist who leads his own funk band, the Underdawgs, is making his mark on the national landscape as an artist determined not to be pigeonholed into any one genre. And his mounting fandom is enjoying the ride.

The 2009-2010 calendar year brought tremendous opportunity to Allen, including a performance for Barack Obama, a multi-city tour with country icon Willie Nelson, studio sessions with Nelson and friends, Ray Price, Leon Russell and R.E.M., the release of the red hot Saints anthem, Bring ‘Em to the Dome (racking up an impressive 500,000 hits on YouTube) and the production of the oil spill song “Sorry Ain’t Enough No More.”

GALACTIC is a collaborative band with a unique format. It’s a stable quintet that plays together with high musicianship. They’ve been together so long they’re telepathic. But though the band hasn’t had a lead singer for years, neither is it purely an instrumental group. GALACTIC is part of a diverse community of musicians, and in their own studio, with Mercurio and Ellman producing, they have the luxury of experimenting. So on their albums, they do something that’s unusual in rock but not so controversial an idea in, say, hiphop: they create something that’s a little like a revue, a virtual show featuring different vocalists (mostly from New Orleans) and instrumental soloists each taking their turn on stage in the GALACTIC sound universe.

Fleur de Tease is a premiere Variety Burlesque Revue. This modern twist on a classic vaudeville show has something to please and tease every audience member. Magicians, fire eaters, comedians, aerialists and of course beautiful burlesque dancers all make up the core members of the troupe.

New orleans based cellist, singer, composer and improviser Helen Gillet grew up in Belgium, Singapore, Chicago and Wisconsin. Gillet has forged a path for the cello in the New Orleans music scene since her arrival in 2002. She has performed extensively across the United States and Western Europe. Beginning cello lessons at the age of nine, Gillet has taken her classical education all the way to a Master’s Degree (Beloit College ’00, Loyola University New Orleans ’04). Her training as an improviser began with North Indian Hindustani vocal ragas in 1998, which launched her into the worlds of free improvisation, jazz, funk, rock and French chansons. Gillet recently performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Voodoo Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival and Hindsgavl Festival in Denmark, Mirano Oltre Festival in Italy and at the Kennedy Center Center in Washington D.C.