Junior Burke to Celebrate Release of Debut Album
on October 6 at 8 pm
Performance to Be Held at the Black Box Theatre, ATLAS Center,
Boulder CU Campus Burke’s CD While You Were Gone Available Now
at juniorburke.com, cdbaby.com, Albums on the Hill and at the Naropa University Bookstore in Boulder, CO
Boulder, Colo. (Wednesday, September 12)—Naropa University Writing & Poetics Chair Junior Burke will celebrate the release of his debut album, While You Were Gone, on Saturday, October 6, 2007, at the Black Box Theater (ATLAS 2B) at the new University of Colorado ATLAS Center for Arts, Media and Performance on 18th Street north of Euclid Avenue on the CU Boulder Campus. Burke will be joined by friends and fellow musicians and performers to kick the celebratory event into high gear. Tickets will be available beginning September 15 from the Boulder Theater Box Office, the Naropa University Bookstore and online at JuniorBurke.com. The public can call 303-786-7030 for more information. Tickets will also be available at the Naropa University Bookstore on the Naropa Arapahoe Campus, 2130 Arapahoe Avenue, in Boulder. Ticket prices are $12 for the general public and $6 for students. Additional information is also available from Red Thread Records, at 303-575-1060.
The long-awaited debut album was produced by industry great Jim Tullio and features 11 of Burke’s evocative pop gems. Drawing on influences ranging from folk rock and blue-eyed soul to blues, Burke is a consummate singer-songwriter. He fashions seamless melodies infused with lyrics that are piercing, authentic and unforgettable, performing them in an evocative tenor voice that invites the listener to share with him an intimate, intensely personal experience. A songwriter during his entire adult life, Burke has seen his work performed and recorded by a range of top talents, including Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, David Bromberg, Mandy Patinkin, Bonnie Koloc, Freddie Jackson, Utah Phillips, the Boston Pops and the Rochester Philharmonic.
Burke’s friend and band mate Janet Feder (director of Naropa’s Music department) will open the show. By placing metal and other various objects on her guitar strings, Janet Feder manipulates a combination of normally pitched strings with ‘prepared’ ones. In this manner, Feder can create an entire orchestral palette of timbres and articulations, transforming the instrument into an acoustic ‘synthesizer’ of unfamiliar yet captivating colors and percussive effects.
Other performance guests will include Wendell Beavers, chair of the Naropa University BFA/MFA Performance department, singer Ethie Friend and pianist Gary Grundei. Feder, Beavers, Friend and Grundei have all collaborated with Burke in the past. Friend and Grundei will perform several numbers from “Someone Else’s Dream,” a cycle of Burke’s songs that they debuted at BMOCA several years ago.
While You Were Gone is being released on Boulder-based Red Thread Records, a label dedicated to bringing the best of adult contemporary music to the forefront. Red Thread Records takes its name from the Eastern concept of a red thread that connects individuals who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance, and whose lives will be forever intertwined from that time forward. Another Eastern tradition refers to the “red thread of passion.” The founders of Red Thread Records believe that music is the medium through which passion for life and its many facets can best be expressed and through which auspicious connections are often made.
Burke is currently chair of the prestigious Writing & Poetics department of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, where he also directs the online Creative Writing program. In addition, Burke teaches fiction, dramatic writing and literary studies. He has most recently been involved in creating a film that pays tribute to Kerouac’s On the Road, called On the Road Now: Writers Respond to Kerouac in the 21st Century. On the Road Now visits many of the book’s original locations, viewing them through a contemporary lens. Burke’s song Teleclone Universe appears in the film.
