Macon Pops’ is on a roll this season! On Friday, Nov. 12th at 7:30 p.m. the Big Band Remix Concert will be performed at the Grand Opera House in downtown Macon. The founders of Macon Pops, Steve Moretti and Matt Catingub, decided to bring a Big Band concert to Macon to celebrate this genre of music Catingub is renown for.

 “We are surprised it has taken us this long to present a big band themed concert but we are excited to finally be able to do so,” says Catingub. “Big bands are deep rooted for me and for Steve Moretti. Steve played drums in my late 90’s/early 2000’s big band that toured with Rosemary Clooney and many others.”

Big Band music is described by many as a jazz-based musical fusion comprised of ten or more trombones, saxophones, trumpets and rhythm section musicians.

The Big Band Remix concert will feature selections from two upcoming world-wide releases that Catingub and Moretti were part of. One is entitled ‘Then is Now’ (which features guest performer, Jens Lindemann). The second release will include Catingub’s solo recording, ‘From Samoa to Sinatra.’

“The ‘From Samoa to Sinatra’ is the recording project I knew I HAD to do to do to honor both my mother, and of course Frank Sinatra,” says Catingub. “When I lost my mom in 1992, my heart  told me that one day I had to honor and thank her, not only for the musical gifts she blessed me with, but also to honor the music she loved, as well as the people that loved her, and made her career what it was, and by extension made what I have been able to accomplish in my life even possible.”

Mavis Rivers was a jazz vocalist who recorded for Reprise, Capitol, and Vee-Jay in the early '60s before making a surprising comeback in the early '80s.

“From Samoa To Sinatra’ project is meaningful in so many ways because it depicts the musical journey of Mavis Rivers, who was born in Samoa, grew up in New Zealand then moved to the states, and was the first female artist signed to Frank Sinatra’s Reprise Record Label,” says Moretti. “We had the young artists, led by Center Director, Amy Schwartz Moretti from the Robert McDuffie Center for strings, record on seven of the songs which I produced right here in Macon at Capricorn Studios. Musically, the [Big Band Remix] concert is going to be EPIC!”

The guest performer, Lindemann, is a classical brass soloist and hailed as one of the most celebrated artists in his instrument’s history. He was recently named “International Brass Personality of the Year” (Brass Herald). Lindemann has played both jazz and classical in every major concert venue in the world: from the Philharmonics of New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Tokyo to Carnegie Hall and even the Great Wall of China. His career has ranged from appearing internationally as an orchestral soloist, being featured at the 2010 Olympics for an audience of 2 billion people, national anthems at the Rose Bowl and for the San Francisco Giants on Memorial Day, and many other events and performances.

For more information about Macon Pops, visit: www.maconpops.com

Important COVID-19 Info about Event:

Macon Pops' concert attendees can obtain information about the Grand Opera House’s Covid-19 policies here: https://www.thegrandmacon.com/your-visit/covid19/