Two performances coming to Cheboygan Opera House this weekend

CHEBOYGAN — The Cheboygan Opera House will be welcoming two different musical groups to the venue this weekend, with The Ultimate Kenny Rogers Tribute on Friday and ABCDuo presents "Cantos por la Vida" Saturday.

Award-winning country recording artist Alan Turner recreates the magic of a night with Kenny in the Ultimate Kenny Rogers Tribute Show, The Gambler Returns, at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 13.

This full band top production show will take the audience on a musical journey through the career of an American icon and legend that sold over 120 million albums worldwide and racked up some 24 number one hits including, “The Gambler,” “Lady,” “Islands In The Stream,” “Lucille,” “She Believes In Me” and so many more.

Turner found his love of music at a very young age and has a personal connection to Kenny Rogers, as he explained in a 2019 interview with the Petoskey News-Review.

“I grew up in St. Clair County, Michigan, on a 20-acre farm. My father was a singer and truck driver. He used to bounce me on his knee and sing to me, and it taught me to love music. He died tragically just before my 10th birthday. The last gift I got from my father, just before my birthday, was a vinyl record of Kenny Rogers’ 'The Gambler.' I fell in love with country music because that was the last gift I got from my father,” Turner said in the interview.

The May 13 performance in Cheboygan is funded in part by Michigan Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Tickets are $25 per person or $20 for veterans and students. Tickets are available online at www.theoperahouse.org/tickets, or at the box office, currently open 9:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, or by calling (231) 627-5841.

Patrons and the public are then encouraged to come back at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 14, for ABCDuo's program, "Cantos por la Vida." This classical guitar and voice duet will perform songs in English and Spanish, with background projection.

Bruce Cain and David Asbury, also known as ABCDuo, have collaborated for more than two decades on concerts of art songs for voice and guitar. Since 2011, the duo has been commissioning and performing new works in English and Spanish by composers from across the United States and beyond.

On May 14, the duo will present a program entitled "Cantos por la Vida," consisting of mostly new works for voice and guitar that are environmentally themed, and have been written especially for them.

The ABCDuo is committed to fostering the connections between music and environmental activism, and has commissioned and premiered more than 30 works that explore this topic. The concert will feature selections from "A River of Words Song Cycle," based on award winning poems by school age children in a contest sponsored by the Library of Congress, "Amor y Desventura" by Mexican composer Julio Cesar Oliva, "Cantos Por La Vida" by Cuban composer Eduardo Martin, and "Sobre la Naturaleza" by Ecuadorian composer Diego Luzuriaga.

Both Cain and Asbury are faculty members at Southwestern University where they met and began performing together in 1998. Together, the duo has performed concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and in notable venues in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Morocco, and Sweden, and across the United States.

Asbury serves as the principal guitar teacher at Southwestern University, and Cain, in addition to his duties as principal voice teacher, serves as department chair, and as the conductor of the San Gabriel Chorale.

Tickets for this concert are $15 for adults, $10 veterans and $5 for students. Tickets are available online, at the box office, or by calling (231) 627-5841.

This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Two performances coming to Cheboygan Opera House this weekend