Palm Beach Pops 2009

Wonderful World: A Salute to Louis Armstrong

• February 6 & 7, 2012 at 8pm – Kravis
• February 8, 10 & 11, 2012 at 8pm – FAU
• February 12, 2012 at 8pm – Eissey
Bob Lappin, Music Director and Conductor
Guest Artists - Singer Lillias White and Trumpeter Longineu Parsons

Tickets $29-$89

Lillias White

Lillias White, the Brooklyn, New York native made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981. She understudied the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of Dreamgirls and played the part in the 1987 revival. White has appeared on Broadway in Cats as Grizabella, Rock'N'Roll! The First 5000 Years, the ill-fated Carrie as the standby for Miss Gardner, Once on This Island as Asaka, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying as Miss Jones (a role rewritten for Ms. White), Chicago as Matron Mama Morton, and benefit concert versions of Funny Girl (in which she sang the role of Fanny Brice), Hair, and Dreamgirls, reprising her role as Effie, for which she won the Drama League Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Perhaps her most notable role was in Cy Coleman's The Life, for which she won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her portrayal of a world-weary, no-nonsense, streetwise hooker named Sonja. Her tour-de-force performance of "The Oldest Profession," a song in which Sonja bemoans the life of a prostitute, received a standing ovation nightly.

White's off-Broadway credits include the Public Theater production of the William Finn musical Romance in Hard Times, for which she won the Obie Award, Dinah Was, in which she portrayed the legendary blues and jazz singer Dinah Washington, The Vagina Monologues, and Crowns, for which she won the AUDELCO Award. Her national tours include Ain't Misbehavin' and The Wiz.

White performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic in a concert of works by Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and George and Ira Gershwin celebrating the orchestra's 50th anniversary. She also has appeared in concert at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center and has toured internationally with her one-woman show From Brooklyn to Broadway. She is heard on the 1991 Madonna recording "Rescue Me". White later appeared on the PBS series Sesame Street including the 1997 VHS release Elmo Says Boo!.

White's television appearances include a regular role on Sesame Street (for which she won an Emmy Award), Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and NYPD Blue. She performed the role of Bloody Mary in the PBS Great Performances presentation of South Pacific. Her screen credits include voiceover work in Disney's Hercules and Anastasia. Film credits include How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Game 6, Pieces of April and Then She Found Me.

Ms.White recently wrapped the Broadway musical Fela! where she played one of the leading roles as Funmilayo. She received a 2010 Tony Award Nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Longineu Parsons

Longineu Parsons has been hailed by critics as one of the world's finest trumpet players. He is also a master of recorders, flute, percussion, and sings the blues. His music crosses genres and defies classification. It's jazz, it's funk, it's blues, it's classic, it's urban, it's world fusion, it's good. His music serves as a metaphor for crossing restrictive boundaries that separate people and confine human potential.

Longineu has performed in some thirty countries in North, South and Central America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. His audiences have included such dignitaries as the King of Morocco, the President of Gabon, the Royal Family of the Netherlands, the President of Austria, the U.S. Ambassador to France, and the Royal Family of Monaco.

Over his 25-year career, Longineu has shared the stage and recording studio with Cab Calloway, Nat Adderley, Cecil Taylor, Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Herbie Mann, Frank Foster, Mal Waldron, Philly Joe Jones, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, David Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, Billy Harper, Hal Singer, Jimmy Witherspoon, Joseph Jarman, Don Moye, François Lindemann, Manu Dibongo, Pierre Akendengue, Sugar Blue, Wycliff Gordon and many others.

Longineu has appeared as guest soloist with "pops" symphony orchestras, providing a popular tribute to Louis Armstrong as well as performing his own compositions. He has played with the Palm Beach Pops Orchestra, the Tallahassee Symphony, the Gainesville Symphony, the Augusta Symphony, the University of South Carolina Symphony, the Savannah Symphony, and the St. Johns River City Band. During this past year, he held the leading role and was the musical director for the Canadian dance musical production Forever Swing. He also appears as trumpet soloist on the hit PBS Great Performances special, Three Mo' Tenors.

Recent performances include the Jacksonville Jazz Festival (2003), the Pensacola Jazz Festival (2003), Trumpet & Trombone Recital with Wycliff Gordon in West Palm Beach (2002), Brass Ensemble with Pianoseven in Switzerland (2002), Amelia Island Jazz Festival (2001), Les Rendez-vous de l'Erde in Nantes, France (2001), United We Jazzed in West Palm Beach (2001), the Belleayre Music Festival, Satchmo Tribute (2000), the Child of the Sun Festival in Lakeland, FL (2000), the Playboy Festival with the Cannonball Adderley Tribute Band in Hollywood,CA (2000), Jazz al Parque in Bogota, Colombia (2000), the Chicago Jazz Festival with Nancy Wilson (1999), and the JVC Jazz Festival Tribute to Cannonball and Nat Adderley in NYC (1999). He also appeared with Nancy Wilson in 2000 at the Blue Note in Tokyo and at Yoshi's in Oakland. In August 2002, he was the headline attraction in a jazz concert at the Monticello Opera House (Monticello, Florida) that featured his compositions.

Longineu is a prolific composer and has several film scoring projects in his portfolio. He has been nominated for an award for his score of a documentary called Hurricane Andrew, 10 Years Later. Other film projects include Alpha & Omgea, a short by Ken Jones presented at the Sundance Film Festival in September 2003, and the highly successful Silents & Jazz, Longineu's music played over Charlie Chaplin silent fi lms. He has just been commissioned to score a documentary on Identity Theft. He is currently studying composition on the doctoral level with Dr. Mark Wingate at Florida State University.

He earned his Master of Music in classical trumpet from the University of Florida. He also pursued supplementary jazz studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He holds a weekly Jazz Jam at a local jazz club to provide a performance opportunity for students, and coaches the trumpet section of the celebrated Florida A&M Marching 100 Band. He was a guest clinician for the Universidad Autonoma de Bucaramanga, in Colombia (1999 and 2000); High School of the Arts, in Bogota, Colombia (2000), and the Conservatoire Nationale de la Region, in Nantes, France in August 2001.