Lyric Performing Arts Academy Presents "The Jazzy Nutcracker"

OAKLAND, Calif. - Dec. 10, 2018 - PRLog -- Lyric Performing Arts Academy (LPAA) presents the third annual Jazzy Nutcracker at the East Oakland Youth Development Center on Saturday, December 15th, 2018. Set to the music of Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite, this family-friendly event will provide children of all ages an afternoon of holiday fun. Doors open at 4pm and the performance will begin at 4:30.

The Jazzy Nutcracker will be presented at the East Oakland Youth Development Center, 8200 International Blvd., Oakland, CA 94621. Admission is free. However, donations will be joyfully accepted. All proceeds will be used to continue providing need based scholarships to promisingly talented students to further their performing arts training.

Set to Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite, LPAA is exposing young people to Jazz music, an art form indigenous to the United States, created by African Americans in New Orleans, Louisiana around the turn of the 20th century. "We believe in using the performing arts as a means to educate audiences," says LPAA co-founder and director Kehinde Salter. "Duke Ellington was a trailblazer in African American Classical Music or Jazz specifically, and American music in general. His musical legacy should be celebrated by this generation and generations to come."

Recorded in 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn arranged what would become the most widely performed Jazz version of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. For years, Jazz aficionados around the world have fallen in love with such songs as Sugar Rum Cherry, Peanut Brittle Brigade and The Volga Vouty. Now, thanks to Lyric Performing Arts Academy's Jazzy Nutcracker, this generation can too.

For more information on Lyric Performing Arts Academy, visit:
http://www.lyricperformingartsacademy.com