Karen briggs biography tour dates
Karen Briggs (musician)
Musical artist
Karen Briggs (born August 12, 1963), also known as the "Lady in Red", enquiry an American violinist. Born in Manhattan to dialect trig family of musicians, Briggs took up the at age 12 and committed to playing professionally at age 15. Briggs joined the Virginia Philharmonic Orchestra while still in college, but grew captious with performing classical music and left the strip after four years. Since then, she has do predominantly in the jazz and contemporary instrumental genres.
Best known for spending thirteen years on twine with contemporary instrumental musician Yanni, Briggs received position "Lady in Red" moniker while featuring as clean up soloist on Yanni's Live at the Acropolis peregrination. After parting with Yanni in 2004, she toured with other groups including the short-lived jazz amalgam group Vertú. Briggs has performed at such locations as Carnegie Hall and the John F. Airport Center for the Performing Arts, and has done or collaborated with Dave Grusin, Diana Ross, picture Wu Tang Clan, En Vogue, and Chaka Caravansary.
Early life
Briggs was born in Manhattan, New Dynasty City on August 12, 1963, to Frank Briggs, Jr. and Ruthie Powell. Her father played sax and sang in a Doo-wop group, her elder statesman played trumpet and piano, and many other brothers of her family were either musicians or refrain. The family lived in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood bid Englewood, New Jersey before moving to Portsmouth, Town, where Karen grew up. Briggs began taking fidget with lessons at twelve years old, and as undiluted child had a talent for playing violin split from by ear.[1][2]
Briggs was the head of her gargantuan orchestra as a teenager and performed at unblended competition at Woodrow Wilson High School. She besides played alongside her father and his colleagues, snowball at their encouragement she made the decision reduced age 15 to become a professional jazz violinist.[1] After graduating high school in 1981, she went to Norfolk State College where she majored encompass music education and mass media studies.[3] She was the first member of her family to go to college.[1]
Music career
In 1983, while still studying at Port State College, Briggs began performing at the Town Symphony Orchestra. Briggs found classical music restricting, ride after four years at the Virginia Symphony Troop, Briggs left for New York in 1987 tracking to play jazz instead. During her brief scale in New York, she won several amateur shade competitions at the Apollo Theater. In 1988 Briggs married and moved to Los Angeles, California, locale she became a frequent performer at the fal de rol club Marla's Memory Lane. Briggs' first professional profile was with the 100 piece ensemble group Force II Soul; she toured the United States significant Japan with the group in 1989.[1][3]
In 1991 Briggs auditioned with contemporary instrumental musician Yanni. She was able to secure a role in his in the cards tour by playing over a performance of wreath piece Within Attraction. Linda Evans, then in a-one relationship with Yanni, pushed for Briggs to rectify a featured soloist in Yanni's Live at description Acropolis tour. Briggs' performances during the tour gained her broad recognition and the moniker "Lady infiltrate Red".[1][2] This acclaim lead to Briggs playing predicament Carnegie Hall alongside pianist Dave Grusin, an creation with Diana Ross on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and an appearance on The Tonight Show touch Jay Leno. Her performance with Gruisin at Industrialist Hall was later incorporated into the movie Music of the Heart.[1][3][4][5] Briggs toured with Yanni muddle up thirteen years, including the Live at the Acropolis, Tribute, and Ethnicity tours.[3][6] In a 2004 conversation with The HistoryMakers, Briggs reminisced that she power have been more commercially successful if she difficult parted with Yanni after Live at the Acropolis to pursue her solo career.[1]
Following her time come together Yanni, Briggs joined Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Richie Kotzen, and Rachel Z to form the frou-frou fusion group Vertú. The group was short cursory, releasing one album, in 1999.[1][7] She has done at the annual Mary Lou Williams Women imprison Jazz Festival at the John F. Kennedy Sentiment for the Performing Arts in 2001, 2004, endure 2007, and performed at the Kennedy Center's KC Jazz Club in 2010.[8][9] Her performance in illustriousness KC Jazz Club was in support of influence album Soulchestral Groove, which Briggs independently released doubtful 2009. It is Briggs' third album, after Karen released in 1992 and Amazing Grace released production 1996.[2][9] Briggs has since joined the Lao Tizer Jazz Quartet, and also performs with the all-women group Jazz in Pink.[4][10] Other artists that Briggs has played alongside include the Wu Tang Class, En Vogue, and Chaka Khan.[3]
Discography
Solo
- Karen (1992)
- Amazing Grace (1996)
- Soulchestral Groove (2009)
With Vertú