Make Music New York - Live Performance Featuring the Guitarist Benji Kaplan

A singular take on Tin Pan Alley's most cherished love songs combined with the interplay of guitar and voice on Benji's originals and covers in Portuguese and English make for an enchanted afternoon from Broadway to Brazil and beyond. "A true ambassador of Brazilian music in New York" - Marcelo Petti (Canal Musical)

An award-winning guitarist, composer, arranger, multilingual vocalist and educator with 6 albums to date, Benji Kaplan has performed in venues alongside world-renowned artists such as Junior Mance, Bernard Purdie, Earth Wind & Fire, Seu Jorge and Kassin. The son of a percussionist father and a visual artist mother, Kaplan made multiple excursions to Brazil as a teenager and an adult, and he offers a unique look at jazz and classical music informed by his vast musical experiences performing, writing, studying and playing with master Brazilian composers/performers since the age of 18. Guinga, the most recognized composer from Brazil post Jobim, has stated: “I think he is the greatest composer of Brazilian music to come from the United States... He is a genius".

Details on www.benjikaplan.com

Praise for Benji Kaplan includes:

• “…Kaplan knows this repertoire of standards inside-out, allowing him to give even the overly familiar melodies fresh depths via unusual arrangements, imaginative counterpoint and complex internal voicings…skillfully, thoughtfully and freshly realized.” - Howard Mandel - (DownBeat Magazine)

• "This is the tonic Jaded ears have been waiting for...a new york kid with brazil in his blood and what appears to be a lightning mind..." - Chris Spector (Midwest Record)

• "A true ambassador of Brazilian music in New York" - Marcelo Petti (Canal Musical)

• "A tour de force of lights, vibrations and enchanting sounds...With Benji Kaplan, it's a bit like Erik Satie was landing in Rio carnival. At such a level of musical confrontation, it is clear that the latest album of this prodigy is worth listening to. Born in Brooklyn from the works of a Cuban father of Russian Jewish descent and an Austrian Jewish mother, Benji Kaplan combines New York, Central European, Latino and Brazilian cultures, resulting in a rich blend of sounds and colors." - François Becquart (Music in Belgium)

• "A guitar player with impeccable technique and fluency. Meditacoes no Violao (guitar meditations) is a collection of poetic and refined compositions, played with a perfect balance of intellect and emotion." - JazzTimes

• "...the degree of intelligence sunk into the deepest corners of every beat and measure of this treasure tells us that no matter what his pursuit might otherwise have been, the result would’ve been simultaneously unearthly while uniquely terran." - Mark S. Tucker (Veritas Vampirus)

• "This is the tonic Jaded ears have been waiting for...a new york kid with brazil in his blood and what appears to be a lightning mind..." - Chris Spector (Midwest Record)

• "...a luxuriantly melodic collection of original songs that draw on the sonic wellsprings of samba, baião, pop music, bossa nova and the cool jazz that helped inspire the new sound introduced by João Gilberto some six decades ago." - Andrew Gilbert (The Mercury News)

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street, New York, United States