Advance tickets are recommended. 134 are available. If weather threatens the advance ticket holders will have seats indoors. Walkups on the day of the show are welcome if the show stays out doors.
We’re super excited to be kicking off another season at The Alliance for the Arts…and the icing on the cake is that our founding members Bruce Hecksel and Julie Patchouli will be playing for us on the Green Market Stage.
Better known as “Patchouli”….the duo brings magical music to the stage.
Here’s a bit more:
Patchouli & Terra Guitarra
Patchouli and Terra Guitarra is master guitarist Bruce Hecksel and singer-songwriter, guitarist Julie Patchouli.
Better known as “Patchouli”….the duo brings magical music to the stage.
Here’s a bit more:
Patchouli & Terra Guitarra
Patchouli and Terra Guitarra is master guitarist Bruce Hecksel and singer-songwriter, guitarist Julie Patchouli.
ZMR calls Terra Guitarra “one of the top nuevo-flamenco groups in the world”, with a #1 and two top 5 internationally charting albums and multiple “Album of the Year” nominations. Patchouli is a folk festival headliner and Public Radio favorite with pure, haunting lead vocals and beautiful harmonies. Their sound, depth and virtuosity is described as “Simon and Garfunkel meets the Gipsy Kings” and “taking a yoga class in a field of running mustangs.”
Their soulful fusion of blazing Spanish and world guitar instrumentals, spine tingling vocal harmonies, and epic folk rock anthems are infused with a visible onstage chemistry. An extraordinary bond is immediately apparent as two guitars merge into one acoustic wall of sound and their innovative, percussive flat-picking and hybrid fingerstyle techniques leave even astute listeners wondering where the drummer is.
Patchouli & Terra Guitarra have performed over 4,000 shows, toured a million miles on the road supporting 20 CD releases, won songwriting awards, industry awards, performed on TV, film and are played on Radio programs around the world.
The duo’s instrumental guitar project Terra Guitarra – “Dragonfly” debuted at #4 on the ZMR World Music Radio Charts and was Nominated ZMR Best Instrumental Acoustic Album of the Year 2013. Their 6th instrumental album “Firelight” is nominated ZMR Best Instrumental Acoustic Album of the Year 2015 was #5 on the ZMR Charts and #1 on the OneWorldMusicRadioUK charts. The duo was honored to perform for the Awards show May 7th 2016 in New Orleans at the Joy Theatre.
The overwhelming demand by their fans to have a live recording of the Terra Guitarra songs lead the duo to release a 12 song recording of Terra Guitarra in concert “Live at the Big River Theatre” November 2015. In January of 2017 they released their 8th album of all instrumental music “Of Sea & Stars” fusing their Spanish guitar style groove with other world music influences and is a huge success in just it’s first couple of months available. “Of Sea & Stars”has already charted at #1 for 2 months on both One WorldMuiscRadioUK and Phase Global Radio (Austrailia) and #2 on the International ZMR new age /ambient/ world music radio charts.
A new Patchouli album (with lyrics/vocals) is in the works and may be out by end of this year. The duo is touring hard this Spring in the USA with a couple of weeks in Europe in May. Their summer tour takes them all over the Midwestern & Eastern states for festivals, and outdoor concerts as well as they will be debuting their new animated concert experience, The Landscape of Guitar in several theatres.
Patchouli & Terra Guitarra represents the very top echelon of today’s acoustic performers, bringing the highest level of skill together with the passion, experience and joy that are a rare combination indeed.
Opening for Patchouli is ACMA member Carlene Thissen!
Carlene Thissen is an American singer-songwriter, and author, born on June 28, 1950, in Andover , northwest New Jersey. Carlene Thissen is now in Naples, Florida, where she dedicates herself to performing, speaking and songwriting, singing and playing piano and guitar at house concerts, clubs, restaurants, festivals and charity events. She also serves the community as part-time Instructor and content developer for a Farm Labor Supervisor Training program at the University of Florida’s Research & Education Center in Immokalee.
Carlene Thissen is an American singer-songwriter, and author, born on June 28, 1950, in Andover , northwest New Jersey. Carlene Thissen is now in Naples, Florida, where she dedicates herself to performing, speaking and songwriting, singing and playing piano and guitar at house concerts, clubs, restaurants, festivals and charity events. She also serves the community as part-time Instructor and content developer for a Farm Labor Supervisor Training program at the University of Florida’s Research & Education Center in Immokalee.
Carlene Thissen performed in the 1960s and 70s as a young guitar-playing folk singer in northwest New Jersey, doing songs by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and Melanie. She says the best three days of her life were spent at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969 and she presents a multi-media program today about that experience.
As she explains in her autobiographical song, Back There Again, this Woodstock hippie girl, “…cut her hair and got a career, and lost herself for 30 odd years.” Forgetting her dreams of being a doctor working in ghettos, she became a successful business woman, well known for speeches, articles and books about marketing technology. She ended her corporate career as Vice President for a large market research company in Chicago, started her own independent international consulting company and then moved to Naples, Florida.
Carlene Thissen says a series of God-driven events led her back to her true self through the agricultural community of Immokalee, Florida, where she volunteered as a music teacher for pre-school children and sang in the choir at Our Lady of Guadalupe church. Her love of the farm workers inspired two books: Immokalee’s Fields of Hope and Called From Silence: The Father Sanders Novel.
She also has written several songs that were inspired by her work and friendships there (see MUSIC on this website and listen to “Take These Hands,” “Mama in Your Heart,” “When Papa Goes North,” “Our Lady of Guadalupe,” and “On the Road Home.”).
Carlene still works part-time at the University of Florida in Immokalee, teaching and developing courses to educate the supervisors of farm workers on the laws that keep farm workers safe and in a fair work environment.
She has three more books in progress about Immokalee and music that will no doubt accompany them. The one that is closest to publication will be called Harvest of Dreams, stories of the children of the farm workers who have gotten educations and advanced degrees so they no longer have to work in the fields. The other two are Black Immokalee, the stories of American Black people who lived on the south side on segregated Immokalee; and The Haitian Kids, about 10 young people she has loved and mentored for 21 years.
She graduated with a B.A. in Business Administration from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1982, and an M.A. in Latin American History from Florida International University in Miami in 2005.
Carlene Thissen lives in Naples, Florida.
She is a member of Nashville’s Global Songwriter’s Connection, Women of Substance’ Female Musician Academy, and the Americana Community Member Association.