MARCUS SHELBY is an accomplished teacher, composer, arranger, and bassist who currently lives in San Francisco, California. Over the past 20 years, he has built a diverse biography. From 1990-1996, Shelby was bandleader of Columbia Records and GRP Impulse! Recording Artists Black/Note and is currently the Artistic Director and leader of The Marcus Shelby Orchestra, The Marcus Shelby Hot 7, and the The Marcus Shelby Trio. Shelby was awarded a 2009 Black Metropolis Research Consortium Fellowship in Chicago for summer 2009 to conduct research for his commission to compose “Soul of the Movement”. Shelby was also a 2006 Fellow in the Resident Dialogues Program of the Committee for Black Performing Arts at Stanford University to conduct research for his commission to compose “Harriet Tubman”. Shelby also has had the honor of arranging for and conducting the Count Basie Orchestra featuring Ledisi, performing with Tom Waits, and receiving the City Flight Magazine 2005 award as one of the “Top Ten Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area”. As the 1991 winner of the Charles Mingus Scholarship, Shelby’s studies include work under the tutelage of composer James Newton and legendary bassist Charlie Haden. Shelby is also very active in music education and currently teaches at Rooftop Alternative School in San Francisco, the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University, and also the Oakland Public Conservatory.
FLO OY WONG is a visual storyteller who began her career at the age of forty. Born and raised in Oakland California’s Chinatown, she has received recognition for her narrative work, including three National Endowment for the Arts awards, a 1995 National Women’s Caucus for the Art Award, a 2007 City of Sunnyvale Art Award, a 2008 Norman Y. Mineta Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Silicon Valley Asian Pacific American Democratic Club and an award from Kearny Street Workshop in honor of her landmark exhibition entitled made in usa: Angel Island Shhh. In March of 2012, she was recognized by two organizations, Art in Action, a Menlo Park, California-based non-profit organization and the Joyce Gordon Gallery of Oakland, California. For her role in co-founding the Asian American Women Artists Association Flo received a Joyce Award. Flo has exhibited widely on a regional, national, and international basis. In California, she has shown at the de Young Memorial Museum, the Angel Island Immigration Station, the South of Market Cultural Center (San Francisco), the Luggage Store Gallery (San Francisco), the Chinese Historical Society of America (San Francisco), the Oakland Museum, the Euphrat Museum of Art, the 40 Acres Art Gallery (Sacramento), the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, and the Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles). On a national level, Flo has exhibited in New York at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, the Ethan Cohen Gallery, and the Flomenhaft Gallery. Internationally, Flo has exhibited at the United States Embassies in Lusaka, Zambia, and Copenhagen, Denmark and in group exhibitions in Beijing, Hong Kong and Nagoya, Japan. She is represented by the Flomenhaft Gallery in New York.
http://www.flo-oy-wongartist.com/
ANDI WONG is a teaching artist, currently working with K-8 students and teachers at Rooftop Alternative K-8 School in San Francisco. As a member of the Rooftop Art Committee and as the school’s 3rd-4th grade technology instructor, she designs and implements whole school integrated studies centered around challenging works of art. As a teaching artist for “Art Is…,” Rooftop’s concept-based arts integration program, she works with the school community to explore the languages of art - visual art, dance, music, theater, literary arts and new media. She is currently working to integrate art, technology, science and environmental advocacy with The Blue Marble Project, and presented at the inaugural BLUEMiND conference at the California Academy of Sciences, established to explore the connection between the ocean and neuroscience. Ms. Wong develops curriculum with Bay Area arts education organizations such as the de Young Museum, StageWrite, San Francisco Opera, and the Marcus Shelby Orchestra and has led arts education workshops for the Alameda Arts Alliance, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, ArtsBridge at UCB, Lincoln Center Institute National Educator Workshop and San Francisco Unified School District. Ms. Wong currently serves on the advisory committees for StageWrite, Susty Kids, Inc. and SFUSD’s Arts Education Master Plan. She is deeply grateful and honored to partner with Marcus Shelby and Flo Oy Wong to develop Gwah Gai: Crossing The Street for APICC.
PETER MACON has portrayed a host of characters for the Ashland Shakespeare Festival company, including Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird; William Henry Brown in The African Company Presents Richard III; Fortune, Soldier and Miner in Ruined; Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice; Second General and Second Quartet in Throne of Blood; Macbeth in Macbeth, Don Pedro in Much Ado about Nothing, Othello in Othello. His Broadway roles include Yak in Drowning Crow (Manhattan Theatre Club); multiple roles in Twilight, Los Angeles (Lincoln Center Theater). Regional: Oedipus in Oedipus (Guthrie Theater), Malcolm in Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella (Yale Repertory Theatre), Aaron in Titus Andronicus (The Shakespeare Theatre), Phillip the Bastard in King John (Shakespeare & Company), Bill Cracker in Happy End (American Conservatory Theater), Witch and Donalbain in Macbeth (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). On Film/TV, Macon has been seen and heard in Ashes, Friendship, Dexter, Law & Order, Without a Trace, Supernatural, The Shield, Chappelle's Show, Animated Tales of the World (HBO). He is an Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Voiceover Narration and a recipient of the Herschel Williams award, Outstanding Achievement in Acting from Yale School of Drama.
TIFFANY AUSTIN is a Los Angeles native whose soul, subtlety and versatility has brought her work to Europe and Asia. She has performed onstage and onscreen, and with artists such as Roy Ayers, Marcus Shelby, and Tomoyasu Hotei. Since completing her law degree, she continues to compose, and perform live at events held by SFJAZZ, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and KQED television. Austin is a featured vocalist with the Healdsburg Festival Freedom Jazz Choir, led by Marcus Shelby. She can also be seen as a soloist for the upcoming premiere of Darren Johnston’s Letters to Home with Trans-Global People’s Chorus, at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.
http://www.tiffanyaustinmusic.com/
過街
GWAH GAI:
CROSSING THE STREET
A Musical Collage in Four Movements
Music by
MARCUS SHELBY
Libretto by
ANDI WONG
Based on stories written by
FLO OY WONG
Inspired by the oral storytelling of
EDWARD K. WONG
featuring
PETER MACON: Narrator
MARCUS SHELBY ORCHESTRA
Tony Peebles: alto sax
Tom Griesser: alto sax
Patrick Wolff: tenor sax/clarinet
Teodross Avery: tenor sax/soprano sax
Fil Lorenz: baritone sax
Chip Tingle: trombone
Rob Ewing: trombone
Ryan Black: trombone
Scott Englebright: trumpet
Joel Behrman: trumpet
Rafa Postel: trumpet
Mark Wright: trumpet
Tiffany Austin: vocals
Joe Warner: piano
Howard Wiley: drums
Marcus Shelby: bass/conductor
with
Jason Hou as Baby Jack
Catherine Hou as Young Flo
GWAH GAI PRODUCTION TEAM
Andi Wong: Artistic Director
Theresa Because
Victor Yan
Pat Lem
Mary Ann Cruz
Chris Wong, Megan Wong & Patrick Wu
APICC STAFF
Executive Director: Vinay Patel
Project Coordinator: Thao Nguyen
Public Relations: Karen Larsen and Larsen Associates
Special Thanks:
ODC Theater and Staff, Mark Erickson,
APICC Board, Jon Jang
Asian Improv aRts, Francis Wong, Nancy Hom, Christy Bolingbroke, Bob Hsiang, Frances Phillips
Imprint Copy and Print
