Cajun sounds come to Sugar Loaf

Sugar Loaf, N.Y. — Sugarloaf Music will present, direct from New Orleans’ most famous music club, Tipitina’s, The Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band, on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 4 and 5, at the Pavilion of the Lycian Performing Arts Center. The band is the winner of the Big Easy Award for Best Cajun Group and Grammy nominee for two dance-party concerts. Daigrepont was born in New Orleans. His parents, from a rural Cajun farming community in Avoyelles Parish, La., moved to New Orleans shortly after World War II. Cajun French is their first language which is evinced in Daigrepont’s music — totally sung in French. Daigrepont has performed at Lincoln Center, the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, and the National Folk Festival. He has made several recordings for the Rounder Recording Company. On the heels of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Sugarloaf Music made a commitment to host at least one New Orleans-based artist in a series of concerts and educational workshops in the Hudson Valley and northern New Jersey. They selected the Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band. “Their appearance here was so well received by the community-at-large in 2005 and the Warwick Valley (N.Y.) School District, that, by popular demand, Sugarloaf Music, in partnership will with Zatarain Foods, will host their return to Warwick Middle School and Sanfordville School, both co-sponsored by their respective PTAs,” says Russ Layne, executive director of Sugarloaf Music. Coupled with Daigrepont’s appearance for two evenings at the Pavilion, audience members will get free dance lessons. Lessons begin at 7:30 p.m. followed by a dance-concert at 8 p.m. Tickets may be purchased at Village Music on Main Street in Warwick and Van Gelder Music, Route 17M in Monroe. For more information and reservations, call 258- JAZZ (5299).