Announce Concert To Benefit Crosstown Arts July 25
After their worldwide hugely successful 3-D concert tours, the Electro pioneers Kraftwerk announce North American tour dates for summer 2020. Bringing together music, 3-D visuals, and performance art, KRAFTWERK are a true Gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art).
The multi-media project Kraftwerk was started in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. They set up their electronic Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf, Germany, where they conceived and produced all Kraftwerk albums. By the mid-1970s, Kraftwerk had achieved international recognition for their revolutionary electronic soundscapes and their musical experimentation with robotics and other technical innovations. With their visions of the future, Kraftwerk created the soundtrack for the digital age of the 21st century. Their compositions — using innovative techniques, synthetic voices, and computerized rhythms — have had a major international influence across an entire range of music genres: from Electro to Hip Hop, from Techno to SynthPop.
In their live performances, Kraftwerk — Ralf Hütter, Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert, Falk Grieffenhagen — illustrate their belief in the respective contributions of both man and machine. Starting with the retrospective of their catalogue at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2012, in recent years Kraftwerk have returned full circle back to their origins within the Düsseldorf art scene of the late Sixties. The 3-D concert series at MoMA was followed by further presentations at Tate Modern Turbine Hall (London), Akasaka Blitz (Tokyo), Opera House (Sydney), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), Neue National Galerie (Berlin), and Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao). In 2014, Ralf Hütter and his former partner were honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Tickets go on-sale to the public this Thursday, February 27 at 10 am (Central Standard Time). American Express® Card Members can purchase tickets in select markets before the general public beginning Tuesday, February 25 at 10 am (CST) through Thursday, February 27 at 9 am (CST).
Crosstown Arts’ Managing Director/Co-founder Christopher Miner said, “Kraftwerk’s long-standing interest in Memphis’ musical past, and their desire to perform a benefit show to support Memphis’ present-day music scene, makes for an ideal way to celebrate Crosstown Arts’ 10-year anniversary. The unprecedented originality of their sound embodies the kind of progressive authenticity that Crosstown Arts was created to help foster. The band’s generosity to perform a benefit show here is beyond inspiring.”
Crosstown Arts’ music department has hosted performances from a wide variety of artists, including The Bad Plus, Kirk Whalum, North Mississippi Allstars, Todd Snider, MonoNeon, members of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Booker T. Jones, members of Big Star, Rebirth Brass Band, John Fullbright, The Midnight Hour, and Jonathan Butler.
In 2019 alone, Crosstown Arts welcomed 15,193 adventurous listeners to the organization’s new music venues. In an April 2019 article about Crosstown Arts’ music scene, Commercial Appeal reporter Bob Mehr predicted that the organization was “poised to take advantage of its setup to become a unique cultural centerpiece, not just in Memphis, but in the United States.”
Crosstown Arts is a non-profit, contemporary arts center offering a variety of music/visual art spaces and programs in Memphis. Located inside Crosstown Concourse (a one-million-square-foot renovation of a former Sears distribution building that Crosstown Arts has managed since 2010), the organization operates a 400-seat black box theater, an intimate listening room for live music, a 5,000-square-foot exhibition space, a multidisciplinary residency program, a shared art-making facility with public access to digital/analog production resources, plus a cafe and bar. Crosstown Arts’ mission is to further cultivate the creative community in Memphis.