Chick Corea & Béla Fleck at the Kauffman Center

Description

Whenever Chick Corea and Béla Fleck take to the stage, genres always fly fast and furious. With a combined 35 Grammy awards, Corea and Fleck expand the horizons of musical composition, blending jazz piano and bluegrass banjo into a new realm of imagination. Performing together, these two master musicians weave out duets of staggering virtuosity, creating mind-blowing, magical performances.
 
Béla Fleck, considered the premiere banjo player in the world, lives to improvise and loves to work with unexpected musical fusions. In high school, Béla began his experimentation by playing bebop on the banjo. His “blu-bop” mix of jazz and bluegrass with his Flecktones was an unexpected commercial success, as well as critically-acclaimed and award-winning. Fleck has won 8 Grammys and is the only musician to be nominated for Grammys in jazz, bluegrass, pop, country, gospel, composition and world music categories.
 
Chick Corea's restless creativity knows no bounds. His groundbreaking band Return To Forever launched the fusion era of the 1970s. His work with flamenco great Paco de Lucia led to the formation of Touchstone, a band whose fiery Latinismo music has bridged the world of flamenco and jazz. His Piano Concerto No. 2 headlined the Vienna's Mozart Celebrations this year. Chick's whole career is the stuff of jazz lore, an amalgamation of influential, limit-stretching, genre-bending musical experiences that have garnered him 12 Grammy awards and legions of fans worldwide.