Performing arts showcased at Augusta Savage Gallery

The Augusta Savage Gallery this month is hosting a series of events representing various facets of performing arts.

Playwright and Fine Arts Center staff member Richard Ballon, along with veteran tubist Joseph Daley and saxophonist Marty Ehrlich, respectively, will perform in the Augusta Savage Gallery on Monday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.

Ballon’s compilation of monologues challenges what it is assumed to be ordinary life. He has performed throughout the country including New York, Canada, Hawaii, Iowa and Boston, and has had monologues and poetry published in several different magazines and websites including Social Anarchism, St. Anthony Messenger and Fellowship in Prayer.

Born in Harlem, Daley has a jazz history that spans more than 40 years. Studies that started in elementary school eventually earned him a degree in from the Manhattan School of Music, which ultimately resulted in a 30-year teaching career.

Ehrlich has performed with a slew of contemporary composers throughout his 30-year career, including Ray Anderson, John Carter, Leroy Jenkins and Andrew Hill. Currently associate professor of jazz and contemporary music at Hampshire College, Ehrlich has garnered honors such as the Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, the Peter Ivers Visiting Artist Residency at Harvard University and Clarinetist of the Year from the Jazz Journalist Association

Bassist Avery Sharp, saxophonist Charles Neville and author and alumna Judyie Al-Bilali will be performing on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 7 p.m.

Sharpe and Neville will be joining forces to serenade the crowd in an evening of improvised music. With his roots in Georgia, Sharpe has been a multi-instrumentalist since the age of eight. His talent stretches from piano to accordion to electric bass, and with encouragement from a master bassist, he began playing the acoustic bass in high school. Throughout his career he has played with legends ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to Pat Metheny, and in 2006 he was appointed by the Springfield Symphony Orchestra to write a concerto for jazz trio and orchestra.

Grammy-winning saxophonist Neville has music experience that stretches back to 1977 when he and his three brothers created the acclaimed group the Neville Brothers. His experience led him to backing popular musicians like James Brown, B.B. King, Ray Charles and Allen Toussaint.

Reading from her new memoir, For the Feeling: Love and transformation from New York to Capetown, Al-Bilali has been a global innovator in performing arts and arts education. She was a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa; she’s a faculty member in educational theatre at New York University  and a recipient of a Jacob Javits Fellowship in Arts and Humanities.

Electronic sound artist Stephanie Robinson, also known as “sroM," will perform a solo concert prior to the reading by Magdalena Gomez on Wednesday, October 17 at 7 p.m.

Robinson not only is a composer, but she’s also a keyboardist, recording engineer, vocalist and a recipient of the Hans J. Salter Prize for orchestral music and First Prize in the NACUSA Young Composer’s Competition. Currently working in the theatre department at Amherst College as a sound designer, she is also an associate professor of music at San Diego College and is also the director of the digital music technology program.

Writer, performer and teacher Magdalena Gomez, is also the co-founder and artistic director of Teatro V!da. With nearly four decades of team building experience in business, health and education, she was appointed master artist in 2010-11 by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Award-winning writer and English professor Martin Espada will be reading from his latest collection of poems, The Trouble Ball, on Thursday, Oct. 18 at 7 pm.

Over the years, his collections have received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, an American Book Award, the Robert Creeley Award and the USA Simon Fellowship. He has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The gallery will open its doors to violist Mark Feldman on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 4 p.m. Feldman will be holding a workshop explaining valuable string techniques to string players and the general public.