OUTDOOR SHOW
SOLD OUT
5PM DOORS / 6:30PM SHOWTIME
WITH SPECIAL GUEST: GEOFFREY LAMAR WILSON
Sponsored by The Current
NO TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR
Based in Minnesota, but with roots in Tennessee, Chastity Brown grew up surrounded by country and soul music. In the gospel church of her childhood, she played saxophone and drums and found her singing voice and a passion for music. Her first show was in Knoxville, TN, and then it was on to Minneapolis. Since then, Brown has been featured on NPR’s “Favorite Sessions”, CMT, American Songwriter, the London Times, Paste Magazine and many others. She has toured the U.S. and abroad, appearing on the U.K.’s Later…with Jools Holland. She has received praise from The Current, Star Tribune, City Pages, and Lavender Magazine, headlined the First Ave Mainstage and performed at The Walker Arts Center’s Rock The Garden, and Eaux Claires Music Festival. Her work has been featured in television and film, including the BBC and HBO television movie, Mary & Martha, starring Hilary Swank.
Recently she made her Bonnaroo Music Festival debut and toured extensively with Ani DiFranco and Andrea Gibson in support of her latest album SILHOUETTE OF SIRENS. In 2019 she was a featured artist alongside the MN Orchestra, presenting an evening of her own songs directed by Osmo Vanska. Chastity Brown is also a 2021 McKnight Artist Fellow.
“What I’ve realized is that the personal is political,” Brown said in a recent interview. “Just by me being a bi-racial, half-black, half-white woman living in America right now is political. Just being a person of color, a queer woman of color, for that matter, is freaking political. I write for and from the marginalized experience,” Brown says. “For the truly triumphant spirit that’s been through some shit, and has fought her/his way through it to maintain a sense of dignity and peace of mind.”
“To listen to Chastity is to lose yourself completely in the sorrow, joy, yearning and wonderment of a hopeful voice that never stops searching; a voice so enormous and evocative that it seeps down past your skin and bones and settles right down into your soul.” Andrea Swensson, The Current
Geoffrey Lamar Wilson is a musician and composer, born and raised in Minnesota. He left home at 18 heading to New York for college, and big city adventure. After finishing a music degree in saxophone performance and composition at Bard College, he took a hiatus from sax and decided to learn guitar and become a singer songwriter, while also pursuing a masters in Music Psychotherapy at NYU. He moved to Brooklyn and from there led the band Jus Post Bellum with his now wife Hannah. A band which some described as “indie folk” or “Historical Fiction”, Jus Post Bellum toured the east coast, south, and midwest over the course of 5 years while recording several records.
Since returning to Minneapolis in 2016, his songwriting has shifted from dusty Post Bellum narratives to contemporary issues spanning the American Civil Rights era to current incidents of racial violence and police brutality. He draws inspiration from the simple musicality, cutting wit and lyricism of Bob Dylan, the stark narratives and brutal honesty of James Baldwin, and a childhood steeped in Soul, Funk, and R&B. He has also composed and recorded themes for several MPR/APM radio podcasts including 74 Seconds(Investigating the Philando Castile Shooting), Flyover(w/Kerri Miller), and in 2019 toured a handful of U.S cities with the live performance of the hit podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, with Nora McInerny, which he also wrote the theme music for. Recently he’s dusted off his saxophone and is working on a new multi layered saxophone project GeoGeo, as well as new singer songwriter content, with plans to release new music for both projects in 2021.