Michael Dorf is proud to announce that the music of Aretha Franklin, the 18-time GRAMMY Winner and Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductee who was named the number one singer of all-time by Rolling Stone magazine, will be celebrated with a special benefit concert at Carnegie Hall on March 6. The initial lineup includes house band Antibalas, Melissa Etheridge, Kenny Loggins, Ann Wilson, Todd Rundgren, Sarah Dash, Glen Hansard, Rhiannon Giddens, Taj Mahal, Living Colour, Allen Stone, and Bettye LaVette, with many more artists to be revealed soon.
The Music of Aretha Franklin event will be Dorf’s 14th annual tribute concert held at Carnegie Hall, with 100% of the net proceeds given to music education organizations for underprivileged youth. Michael Dorf has announced that over 1.3 million net dollars has been raised by the series to date.
Dorf’s must-see sold-out Carnegie shows have previously honored the music of Bill Withers, David Byrne, Paul Simon, Prince, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, R.E.M., Neil Young, The Rolling Stones and others. Last year’s David Bowie celebration, by an unfortunate coincidence, transformed into a memorial as “wide-ranging and celebrated as Bowie’s career” (The Guardian). Shows at both Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall, featuring the likes of Michael Stipe, The Flaming Lips, Pixies, Cat Power, Blondie, Perry Farrell, and Mumford & Sons, sold out immediately. 2015’s David Byrne and Talking Heads’ celebration was “so explosive that absolutely no one wanted to leave” (Billboard) and Byrne himself closed the show, leading the marching band Brooklyn United down the aisles of Carnegie Hall onto the historic stage. Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. also performed unannounced encores at their own tributes.
The annual fundraiser has remained focused on important education programs provided by organizations such as Young Audiences New York, Little Kids Rock, Church Street School of Music, The Center For Arts Education, TON, Grammy in the Schools and the D’Addario Foundation.
Dorf is uniquely suited to create the impressive and eclectic rosters he assembles each year as a founder of two seminal NYC music venues: the Knitting Factory, which he started in 1987 and sold in 2002, and City Winery, the venue he founded in 2008 in NYC, that now has locations in Chicago, Nashville, Atlanta and Boston. For nearly thirty years, he has programmed for stages across the globe.
Working alongside him as an Associate Producer for the show is Shlomo Lipetz, City Winery’s National Programming Director. For the past 8 years, Lipetz has been overseeing the musical programming in all of the City Winery’s locations.
