Aqui Tu Mundo Digital: Jose Feliciano en el Lehman College

Lehman Center for the Performing Arts presents the return, by popular demand, of multi-GRAMMY Award-winning singer, guitarist and composer JOSE FELICIANO for two holiday concerts on Saturday, December 4, 2010. There will be a one-hour Special Family Matinee performance at 2pm and a full concert at 8pm. José Feliciano, whose chart-topping recording of “Light My Fire” catapulted him to pop superstardom in 1968, possesses an unmistakable tenor voice that can be heard on nearly seventy albums. He brought the acoustic guitar to a new level and influenced pop music for two generations with songs in English, Spanish, and Italian, crossing over genres of music, from soul to pop, and from Latin to classical. His mega-hits include “Che Sera” and “Feliz Navidad,” named one of the “25 Greatest Holiday Songs of the Century” by ASCAP. Forty-five gold and platinum records, eight GRAMMY® Awards and countless honors and awards signify a career rivaled by only a handful of artists.

Lehman Center for the Performing Arts is on the campus of Lehman College/CUNY at 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY 10468. Tickets for JOSE FELICIANO Special Family Matinee on Saturday, December 4, 2010 at 2pm are $25 (General Admission Seating) and $10 for children under 12. Tickets for JOSE FELICIANO Holiday Concert on Saturday, December 4, 2010 at 8pm are: $45, $40, $35 and $30. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Lehman Center box office at 718.960.8833 (Mon. through Fri., 10am–5pm, and beginning at 12 noon on the day of the concert), or through 24-hour online access at www.LehmanCenter.org. Lehman Center is accessible by #4 or D train to Bedford Park Blvd. and is off the Saw Mill River Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway. Free on-site parking is available.

JOSE FELICIANO was born blind to humble beginnings in Lares, Puerto Rico in 1945, one of eleven boys, and moved with his family to NYC at age five. He learned to play the concertina at age six by listening to records and performed at age nine at the Puerto Rican Theater in the Bronx. He taught himself to play guitar, again by listening to records, practicing for as many as fourteen hours a day. Listening to ‘50s rock-n-roll inspired him to sing, and at 17, he quit school to help his family, playing in coffee houses in Greenwich Village. He played his first professional gig that year in Detroit. Shortly thereafter, a music critic writing of his performance at Gerde’s Folk City referred to him as a “10-fingered wizard who romps, runs, rolls, picks and reverberates his six strings in an incomparable fashion.”

Feliciano’s major break was in the Spanish market when, after an amazing performance at the 1966 Mar del Plata Festival in Argentina, RCA executives in Buenos Aires asked him to stay and record an album of Spanish music. The first single, “Poquita fe,” was a smash hit, and “Usted” was even bigger. Infusing long-time standard boleros with his own guitar and vocal stylings, he became the teen idol of the day. Two more albums followed, and Feliciano became a star throughout South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. RCA executives in LA then brought him to producer Rick Jarrard, who recommended that Feliciano record a song that Jarrard had heard him sing in concert – “Light My Fire.” By the time he was 23, José Feliciano had had performed throughout most of the world and earned five GRAMMY nominations, winning two for his album Feliciano!

In 1996, Feliciano received Billboard's Lifetime Achievement Award, and NYC honored him by renaming Public School 155 in East Harlem the José Feliciano Performing Arts School. He has performed his classical compositions, as well as his guitar transcriptions of works by other composers, with many of the top symphony orchestras. His compositions have been featured in television, films, and on the stage. In 1997, PolyGram released Feliciano's most important recording in many years, Señor Bolero, marking a return to his musical roots, which went double platinum and earned his sixteenth GRAMMY nomination, for Best Latin Pop Performance. 2007’s The Soundtrax of my Life was a collection of original songs recorded over a period of five years, and 2008’s Señor Bachata won a Latin GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Tropical Album as well as a GRAMMY Award for Best Tropical Album. His latest release is 2010’s José Feliciano All Time Greatest Performances.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Lehman Center also receives support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

For additional information, photos, interview requests, contact:
Leah Grammatica / LGPR / 212.243.6052 / Leahgram@aol.com

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