Dear Lone Star Songs supporter!
We’ve been planning something special for you.
Last season, we brought great artists with Texas ties to make some music in Waco.
Cecilia Duarte, Ana Maria Otamendi, and Reginald Smith, Jr sang music from four different centuries in six different languages, welcomed Baylor and MCC students to the stage with them, and shared incredible beauty and energy with us. Our inaugural TXNXT Festival supported Texas-based composer/performer teams through the songSLAM competition and the Waco Lullaby Project, and resulted in the creation of nineteen new songs.
You showed up for us, and we heard your feedback!
- You supported all of our concerts, but you really turned out for the TXNXT festival - three times as many people bought tickets for TXNXT than for any other concert. You especially went for the songSLAM competition, which garnered more audience and more feedback than any other concert by far.
- You asked for easier access to our concerts through better, simpler pricing, and the addition of virtual access.
We’re calling our second season TO THE DISTANT BELOVED in celebration of song’s power to connect us, even when time and distance may separate us. And we are changing things up for you.
- Tickets to everything we do are now just $20, or $10 for students. We want to see you at our shows!
- Everything we present in our beautiful venue, First Presbyterian Church Waco, will be available for real-time viewing at the church’s virtual link. Tickets for virtual attendance will be $10.
You will still see the same combination of internationally acclaimed artists with strong Texas ties, brand new creative teams based in the state, sharing of knowledge with local student musicians, and connection to our Waco community.
In September, we welcome internationally acclaimed singer LEAH CROCETTO for an evening of song ranging from opera to jazz, from whispered intimacy to full-throated awesomeness. In January, are second TXNXT FESTIVAL will see a dramatic program from Rice University based, Europe-bound duo KELLAN DUNLAP and LYNDSI MAUS, along with our THIRD ANNUAL CENTRAL TEXAS SONGSLAM and our second song workshop in collaboration with Baylor composition students. Finally, in the spring, we’ll invite a new Central Texas singer/pianist duo to perform a program on our theme of the distant beloved; we’ve put out a call for submissions and will announce our chosen duo in October.
It’s exciting. And we quite literally can’t do it without you. And you don’t have to give a lot to make a real difference.
Small, repeating donations help make our day-to-day possible: the cost of maintaining our online presence, of connecting with our community, of filing our paperwork.
Can you go a little further? You’ll help support the fine artists we bring to Waco.
Can you reach out even a bit more? You’ll support our future dreams through development of community-based projects.
With the help of our supportive community, we can accomplish so much!
Let’s do this work, together.
Thank you,
Kathleen Kelly
Artistic Director, Lone Star Songs
Reginald Smith, Jr. workshop