Derek Menchan - Millennial Relevance: The Timeless Contributions of Artists of Color
📷 = HAVEN Magazines (2018)
Join award-winning artist and Polk State College Professor of Humanities & Music Derek Menchan for an afternoon lecture and performance celebrating the lives of America's greatest artists of color. The event takes place on 2/16/2020 at 2 PM and is FREE TO THE PUBLIC! There will a reception held in the gallery after the performance.
Teaching artist Derek Menchan is a producer, multi-instrumentalist; an artist for NS Design, as well as a visual artist. He is currently an instructor in the Humanities and of Music at Central Florida's Polk State College. A prize- winning Master’s recipient from the Manhattan School of Music, Menchan's pedigree includes tutelage from, and masterclasses with, 'cellists Laszlo Varga, Janos Starker, Slava and Olga Rostropovich, and Harvey Shapiro, and many conductors of note.
The professor’s vast experience and accomplishments have been shaped by his turns as solo 'cellist for numerous ensembles, including the New York Pro Arte Ensemble, the Orlando Symphony, and Houston's OrchestraX, as well as his collaborations with Grammy Award winning engineers Mike Dean and Mike Moore, of Tupac, Kanye, and Drake fame. These experiences, combined with his collaborations with numerous painters, videographers, and dance troupes, including Project Bandaloop and the Bill T. Jones Dance Company, have made Menchan into a highly sought after soloist and chamber musician, in the States and abroad, and also consultant and collaborator at many levels.
His creation of the premiere chamber music series in Central Florida, Voices of the People, is borne of a dedicated mission to build and educate new audiences for "classical"music, with peformances featuring young artists of color, taken directly to the people, where they are, in a gritty and raw fashion, devoid of pretense.
Menchan also is founder of two companies: BluClok Records, with it's debut album, "The Griot Swings the Classics," just released on November 13, 2018, hitting a high of # 4 on Amazon's digital contemporary R n B charts--and the indie film company, Empty Rabbit Productions.