Gina Chavez will headline the final Nightfall of the season Friday at Miller Plaza
The 2016 Nightfall Season will come to a close Friday with a headline performance by Austin artist Gina Chavez and her band, along with a special UTC Takes Over Nightfall theme. This free show at Miller Plaza will also feature local band Danimal Planet as the opening band.
Arrive early on Friday to celebrate UTC’s home opening game with a 6:30 UTC Band and Spirit performance, including an appearance by the football team, remarks by Coach Huesman and T-shirts thrown from the stage. The UTC Mocking Birds will also perform from the stage between Nightfall’s opening and headlining acts.
Review for Gina Chavez:
Headlining Nightfall at 8 p.m. is “Austin Artist of the Year” (2015), Gina Chavez, a bilingual Latin-folk singer/songwriter who blends the sounds of the Americas with tension and grace. Her latest independent release, Up.Rooted, is a passionate collection of bilingual songs traversing cumbia, bossa nova, vintage pop, reggaeton, and folk combined with dynamic vocals and sharp social commentary. Chavez and her band have claimed a prominent stake in the Live Music Capital. An eight-time Austin Music Award winner, Chavez and her band swept the 2015 awards, winning Musician of the Year, Album of the Year (Up.Rooted), Song of the Year (“Siete-D”), Best Latin Band, and the Esme Barrera Award for Music Activism and Education, while placing in six other categories.
Her album won the praise of National Public Radio, USA Today, and The Boston Globe, and topped the iTunes and Amazon Latin charts after a feature on NPR’s All Things Considered. She is the 2014 John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize Winner for her song “Siete-D,” a rock-cumbia-rap mix that explores the delights and dangers of El Salvador from a window on the 7-D, the bus route she rode as a volunteer there in 2010. Chavez and her partner, Jodi Granado, co-founded a college fund for Salvadoran women called Niñas Arriba. Southern Living and Olay named Chavez one of 11 “southern iconic women who have left a beautiful footprint across the South,” for her continued work in El Salvador.
Opening this show with music at 7 p.m. will be Danimal Planet, fronted by Dan Pinson, a local singer, songwriter, musician and producer. Dan worked as a musician in Nashville for eight years playing in several bands and doing session work before moving to Chattanooga. Dan is the primary songwriter for the group and plays bass, lead guitar, loops, electribe, vocals and more. He also performs with a full touring band, IckyBod CrankiN.
Nightfall 2016 represents a series of 15 free Friday-night concerts held at Miller Plaza in downtown Chattanooga. Each Friday since May 6, Nightfall has showcased a broad spectrum of musical genres featuring a Chattanooga band at 7 p.m., followed by a headline show by a national artist at 8 p.m., many of whom are performing for the first time in the city.
Food trucks, beer, wine, whiskey cocktails and non-alcoholic drink concessions are available on site. No outside food or beverages are allowed to be brought in to Nightfall.
Over the course of 28 seasons, Nightfall has grown into Chattanooga’s signature summertime program for Chattanooga and the surrounding region. Known for its family-friendly environment as well as being recognized nationally for the quality of its musical programming and locally as “Best of the Best” for Chattanooga Events, Nightfall is a family-friendly concert series with an average attendance of between 2,500-3,000 each night.
For more information on this free community concert series, call 265-0771 or visit NightfallChattanooga.com for an interactive website that includes music samples by each headliner, as well as other information for first-time attendees.