Audience picks the program at Adrian jazz show
Written by Mary Petrides | | mpetrides@toledofreepress.comKathy Kosins’ Live by Request jazz show gives the audience what they ask for every time.
“Let’s say somebody wants to hear ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’ … we give them the option,” Kosins said. “How would you like to hear this song? Would you like to hear it as a ballad? Would you like to hear it up-tempo? Would you like to hear it with a Latin twist?”
Kosins, a Detroit area native, has toured the United States and Europe singing jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and R&B. Kosins will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16 at Croswell Opera House in Adrian, Mich. The performance will kick off Adrian’s Art-A-Licious festival, which runs Sept. 17-18.
“It’s an exciting time to be in Michigan,” she said. “Whenever I come home, I always enjoy my time here.”
She called her show a “people’s concert.” Her repertoire will be posted in Croswell’s lobby, and audience members can write requests on cards and leave them in a basket. During the concert, Kosins will draw cards from the basket and sing what she sees.
“It’s like when you go to a restaurant and the waitress says, ‘How do you want your steak cooked?,’” she said. “It’s the same thing.”
Kosins said she began singing rock ‘n’ roll and R&B in the late ’80s or early ’90s. Through the years, she became more attracted to jazz, but kept performing other genres as well. If she sang jazz exclusively, she’d be a starving artist, she said.
“I’ve broadened my horizons and come full circle to my roots in rock and R&B,” she said. “Every one of those art forms has a place at the table.
“I can turn around 180 degrees and to R&B and rock, then turn around 180 degrees and do a jazz show,” she said. “Some people see it as a detriment. I see it as an asset.”
Kosins is a visual artist as well — a modernist and abstractionist, she said. Some of her work will be displayed at the Croswell the evening of her performance.
For tickets, call (517) 264-7469 or visit www.croswell.org. General admission is $18; student tickets are $12. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and a cash bar will be available.
Tags: Croswell Opera House, Kathy Kosins
