Stax Music Academy to Take Italy by Storm

Press Release, Sunday, June 18, 2006

Group Will Open Festivities of the 19th Annual Porretta Soul Festival in Porretta Terme in Rufus Thomas Park

MEMPHIS, TN, JUNE 18, 2006 – Soulsville – the nonprofit parent company that operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Stax Music Academy, and The Soulsville Charter School – announced today that 14 students from the Stax Music Academy will depart Memphis on June 26th to open the festivities for the 19th Annual Porretta Soul Festival in Porretta Terme, Italy. The trip is the first-ever Stax Music Academy Summer Tour Presented by FedEx.

Founded in 1988 by Porretta Terme native Graziano Uliani as a tribute to the late Stax Records legend Otis Redding, the Porretta Soul Festival takes place in the town’s Rufus Thomas Park, and artists who have appeared there over the years include The Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the MGs, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Percy Sledge, Mavis Staples, Wilson Pickett, and dozens of other soul music icons. The students will visit other parts of Italy while there and give other performances, and will then travel to London. Their performances in Rufus Thomas Park are on July 1st and 2nd. On July 20th, the four day festival begins and will feature Memphis Horns legend Wayne Jackson, James Govan & the Rum Boogie Blues Band, Charlie Wood, The Neville Brothers, and New Orleans queen of soul Irma Thomas.

“This is extremely exciting for all of us,” says Soulsville CEO Marc E. Willis. “We started the Stax Music Academy in 2000, before we had a building, and now, to have this kind of opportunity is gratifying on many levels for the staff, the students, the great people at FedEx, our donors and members, and everyone else who has supported Soulsville and continues to do so. It is going to be a life-changing experience for the children. It’s just one more way we are carrying the Stax legacy into the future.”

Prior to their departure, the students performed at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s Family Day on June 17th as their last public performance before the Summer Tour.

Also traveling to Europe with the student and staff is a crew from WKNO TV, Memphis’ Public Broadcasting System affiliate. Producers and crew members began interviewing and filming the students, staff, and parents in May, and will release a documentary about the trip at a later date.

In May, students who are part of the trip performed at the Stax Music Academy for Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones, members of the famed Stax house band Booker T. & the MGs. Festival organizer Uliani, along with author Peter Guralnick, were also in attendance. Cropper, who was on the famed 1967 Stax Records European tour, told the students and has performed at the Porretta Soul Festival, told the students, “The minute you get to Porretta, you are going to feel like you’re at home because everyone there loves Memphis music so much and knows so much about it. You are in for the time of your lives.”

Upon their return, the students will join the Stax Music Academy’s 225 SNAP! Summer Music Camp children for a Grand Finale performance at the Orpheum Theater in Memphis on July 12th. The focus of the Grand Finale this year is a salute to the community surrounding the Stax Music Academy and Stax Museum, known as Soulsville, USA, where many iconic musicians were born, grew up, and recorded, including Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Memphis Slim, Booker T. Jones, David Porter, Calvin and Phineas Newborn, Memphis Minnie, and Maurice White, founder of Earth, Wind, and Fire.

The Stax Music Academy is a unique learning center offering year-round music education and community programs primarily to potentially at-risk urban youth in the Soulsville, USA area and throughout the city. The Academy provides music education and exciting performance opportunities designed to enhance our students’ musical abilities and their academic and leadership skills so they may become prosperous citizens and facilitators for community change in the future. The Academy programs use music as a tool to improve the students’ self-confidence, reading and math scores.

For more information, please contact Tim Sampson 901-261-6324, tim@soulsvilleusa.com. For more information about Soulsville, please visit www.staxmuseum.com, and for more information about the Porretta Soul Festival, please visit www.porrettasoul.it.

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