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Cold Spring Violinist Gwen Laster in Free Multimedia Performance Honoring Women's History Month
Celebrate Women's History Month with classically trained violinist Gwen Laster and her band as their music provocatively fuses with still and video images of women from Africa for the launch of this new multimedia project tentatively entitled, "Women's Work Honored" at An Afternoon at Long Island University (Kumble Theatre), starting at noon on March 7th (Admission is free).
As a violinist, Laster has worked with musical greats such as multi-platinum artists Alicia Keys, Shaggy, Angie Stone, Anthony Braxton, Jay Z, Hubert Laws, and performed live with Broadway shows like Miss Saigon, Carousel, Beauty and the Beast. Television includes appearances with R&B, Soul and Jazz artists Brian McKnight, Aretha Franklin, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, and Deborah Cox. Laster has been able to intertwine jazz, world, and classical stylings as a bandleader and recording artist on two recordings, "Sneak Preview"(EP) and most recently "I Hear You Smiling" with a new CD to be released this spring.
Grateful for all she has accomplished in her professional career, Laster wanted to give back. The question was, how?
Upon receiving several wedding presents from the shop called Women's Work in her hometown of Cold Spring, Laster found her answer. The owner, Cecilia Dinio Durkin and family had just moved back to the NY area after living the past three years in Botswana, Africa. While there, Dinio Durkin worked with women's groups trying to help them market their crafts in order to feed their families. The mission of the store is to provide a venue for women to sell their fairly traded crafts so they can retain their chosen/desired way of life.
After discussing the many ways Laster could help, the two women found a perfect fit. The March 7th performance of "Women's Work Honored" taking Laster's music and coupling it with images taken by Dinio Durkin and her husband, Peter Durkin would be the basis for a documentary Dinio Durkin had only dreamed of. But now, with Laster's pledge of donating a percentage of her CD sales and expressing an interest in writing an original score for the film, the dream is closer to becoming a reality. "With Gwen's musical talents, strength and help, I finally feel the documentary can really happen. By preserving the women and their crafts on film would not only be preserving the history of crafts or culture in Africa , but also the roles women have played from the beginning of time." Says Dinio Durkin.
Women's Work will be present with crafts from Botswana, and many more craft projects including those initiated by the many Peace Corps Volunteers and HIV - AIDS initiatives in Southern Africa.
For more information about the concert, please contact Gwen Laster at 265-2878, http:/ /www.gwenlaster.com.
For more information about Women's Work, please contact Cecilia Dinio Durkin at 845.809.5299 or email cecilia@womensworkbw.com; www.womensworkbw.com.
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