Community Corner
Your Guide to the On the Vine Music Festival with Natalie Cole and Smokey Robinson
Part of the proceeds from the four-day jazz and soul festival will go to the Martha's Vineyard Hospital Dialysis Center, organizers say.
A soulful new music series is making its debut in Oak Bluffs this week with the goal of raising money and awareness for kidney disease research. And according to the organizers, some of that money will be staying on the Island in the form of a donation to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital Dialysis Center.
The four-day On the Vine Music Festival opens Thursday evening with a concert at the Tabernacle featuring Motown great Smokey Robinson and opener Angie Stone. Tickets to the 6:30 p.m. show are $125 to $135.
Friday, there's no cover charge for what promises to be a hot jazz jam at the Island House Bar & Grill on Circuit Avenue. Starting at 9 p.m., it features jazz percussionist great Dr. Kahil El’Zabar and other Chicago musicians with New York trumpeter Maurice Brown as well as local and visiting Island performers.
Natalie Cole headlines Saturday night's concert at the Tabernacle. The nine-time Grammy Award winner and kidney disease survivor will be joined by Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds in an evening hosted by comedian, actor (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and kidney disease survivor Richard Lewis. Grammy Award-winning violinist Miri Ben-Ari will also perform. Tickets to the 6:30 p.m. show are $125 to $200 with a special VIP ticket of $300 that includes a pre-concert reception, front-row seating and an autographed poster.
The festival goes out in style Sunday at Featherstone Center for the Arts with a jazz brunch featuring Kahil El'Zabar, trumpeter Roy Hargrove and saxophonist James Carter, and scheduled to include a check presentation to American Friends of Rambam Health Care Campus for Kidney Disease Research and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital Dialysis Center. Tickets are $150 to $350.
Organizers say “On The Vine” will be an annual event benefiting the Rambam Health Care Campus located in Haifa, Israel and will help fund the research of Dr. Karl Skorecki, who has identified genetic markers linked to contracting kidney disease.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit onthevineevents.com
For more things to do on Martha's Vineyard this week, please see our Events calendar. You can post your own events there any time for free.