Featuring:
Storm Lever
Storm Lever’s many professional appearances include Duckling Donna in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (Broadway); Dorothy in The Wringer (City Center – Off Broadway); Wendy in Fly (La Jolla Playhouse); Polexia in Almost Famous (The Old Globe); Duckling Donna in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (La Jolla Playhouse); Savannah/ Ensemble in Freaky Friday (Signature Theater, Alley Theater, Cleveland Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse); and Emotional Creature (Berkeley Rep). Her TV and film appearances include portraying Jane in No One Called Ahead. Storm gives love to her chosen family, her OG family, B.F.A.mily University of Michigan, and to BRS/Gage. @_stormieweather
eLLIE fISHMAN
ELLIE FISHMAN most recently performed in A Little Night Music at Lincoln Center. FIRST NATIONAL TOUR: Into The Woods (u/s Cinderella, others), Miss Saigon (Ellen), Finding Neverland (Miss Jones). OFF-BROADWAY: The Hello Girls (Grace Banker, Original Cast). REGIONAL THEATRE: The Music Man (Marian/Goodspeed), Fiddler on the Roof (Tzeitel/North Shore), Les Miserables (Fantine/Witchita), Rags (Goodspeed), The Sound of Music (Maria/City Springs). B.F.A University of Michigan. elliefishman.com ig:@ellie_fishman
Jimmy Vivino
Jimmy Vivino (aka Jimmy V) has always considered himself “a blues man with a job”. Although best known for serving 26 years as Conan O’Brien’s musical director, guitarist and bandleader, his experience in the music business predates that by 20 plus years.
Jimmy V has produced, lead bands and recorded with a countless number rock and roll and blues artists for five decades including the likes of Hubert Sumlin, Warren Haynes, Joe Bonamassa, Elvis Costello, Johnnie Johnson, Son Seals, Shemekia Copeland, Levon Helm, Phoebe Snow, Dion, Laura Nyro, Bob Margolin, Lowell Fulson, John Sebastian, Joe Louis Walker and Al Kooper to name a few. When not producing, recording or touring with other artists, Jimmy still tours the country and the world with his own band. Jimmy's latest record, Gonna Be 2 Of Those Days, will be released in Early 2025 by Gulf Coast Records.
Mike Merritt
Mike Merritt’s career as a bassist includes 25 years playing in the house band on all of Conan O’ Brien’s TV talk shows, starting in New York with “ Late Night” then moving to Los Angeles for “The Tonight Show” and TBS’s “Conan”. This gave Mike opportunities to perform with many guest artists over the years, including Cheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, The Staple Singers, B.B. King, Slash, Tony Bennett, Steve Miller, Isaac Hayes, Chet Atkins, Pete Townshend, Robert Palmer, Bruce Springsteen and scores of others. Mike still performs on occasional live concert versions of Conan’s wildly popular podcast, “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend”.
Steve Bernstein
An impactful presence on the New York scene over the past 30 years, trumpeter, composer, arranger and bandleader Steven Bernstein has immersed himself in such a wide array of music with his bands Sexmob, Millennial Territory Orchestra, Diaspora Soul, Universal Melody Brass Band, Spanish Fly, Blue Campfire and the Butler-Bernstein Hot 9 that he defies easy categorization. A former member of the Lounge Lizards and Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble Band, Bernstein has also composed works for film, theater and dance in addition to doing arrangements for a diverse list of artists ranging from Lou Reed to Lee “Scratch” Perry, Allen Toussaint, Marianne Faithfull, Linda Ronstadt, Rufus Wainwright, Darlene Love, Mario Pavone, Bill Frisell, John Lurie and the Kansas City All-Stars. His lengthy list of sideman credits includes recent recordings by Laurie Anderson (Heart of a Dog), Roswell Rudd (Trombone for Lovers), Mostly Other People Do The Killing (Loafer’s Hollow), Antony and the Johnsons (Turning) and Nels Cline (Lovers). He also continues to perform with Ray Anderson’s Pocket Brass Band, Omaha Diner and the Kamikaze Ground Crew.
Erik Lawrence
Erik Lawrence has toured the world as a saxophonist, flutist and composer. He currently performs solo and with his own group, Erik Lawrence Trio and Hipmotism and co-leads a band with his Jazz vocalist sister, Marya Lawrence, featuring Cameron Brown on bass and Ben Perowsky on drums. In addition, Erik is a published journalist, poet and photographer. The son of a renowned jazz saxophonist and educator, Arnie Lawrence, Erik began playing saxophone at the age of five. Since he has studied composition, music from around the world and has collected and dedicated himself to the study of flutes he has found in his travels to 41 states and 27 countries. He has appeared on two Grammy winning Albums and two Platinum records. He has taught music and poetry, elements of jazz in colleges and universities since the age of 18. Erik has given lectures and demonstrations at Music Therapy pain symposiums (recertification program), nursing continuing education, the New Jersey Piano Tuner’s Guild, Arts centers, yoga and healing centers, at private and public universities and high schools, and in other formal and informal settings.
Mercedes Ellington
Mercedes Ellington, Director/Choreographer, Producer, Performer, and Family Historian. The founder, CEO and Artistic Director of The Duke Ellington Center For the Arts, a not for profit 501(C)(3) since 2007, she currently presents concerts with Tony Waag and his American Tap Dance Foundation, at Birdland and other venues based on the musical output from the Ellington catalogue of almost 3,000 compositions.
Mark Shapiro
Emcee/Auctineer
American conductor Mark Shapiro is an acclaimed conductor of orchestras, opera, and choruses, with an extraordinarily broad and diverse repertoire. He has built a reputation for exactness in musicianship, fluent and engaging rehearsals, and emotionally and spiritually powerful performances, and he is unique among North American conductors for having won six ASCAP Awards leading three different ensembles.
The New York Times has admired his “spirit of adventure” and praised his work as "insightful” while saluting the “uncommon polish” of his music-making. Opera News appreciated his “superb pacing and great confidence.”
