Music

Multi-Grammy® and Oscar® winner Jon Batiste will present an evening of genius music composition and instrumental virtuosity in an exclusive performance, STREAMS: Jon Batiste At The Piano, on May 10, 2024, at 8:00 p.m.

Scored for two singers with brass ensemble, Lotus Lives tells the story of a Chinese American woman exploring her heritage through a fascinating juxtaposition of chronologies. The on-screen and shifting panorama of singers, dancers, instrumentalists, and shadow puppetry, both live and prerecorded. The music blends contemporary styles with rap, Chinese folk music, and dance-club music into an exuberant romp accompanied by a dazzling display of electronics.

Killer Queen - A Tribute to Queen, featuring Patrick Myers as Freddie Mercury, will take the stage with its thrilling, adventurous, and electrifying performance at the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts on Saturday, September 28 at 8:00 p.m.

Former King Crimson members ADRIAN BELEW and TONY LEVIN band together with guitar virtuoso STEVE VAI and explosive Tool drummer DANNY CAREY for the first time to create BEAT, a creative reinterpretation of the three iconic 80s KING CRIMSON albums - Discipline, Beat, and Three Of A Perfect Pair. Only the greatest players in the world would take on the challenge of performing this incredibly influential music. Prepare yourself for the experience of a lifetime with BEAT performing the 80s music of KING CRIMSON!

Nickel Creek is mandolinist Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins. Together a sum of more than their staggering parts, the trio revolutionized bluegrass and folk in the early 2000s and ushered in a new era of what we now recognize as Americana music. After a nine year absence, the Platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning trio returned in 2023 with the highly-anticipated album, Celebrants—a bounty of 18 disparate but loosely connected songs written collectively during a creative retreat in Santa Barbara in early 2021. The result is perhaps the most audacious yet accessible release of the Grammy-winning trio’s 34-year career. The entire enterprise is, naturally, shot through with the trio’s virtuosic picking and shiver-inducing harmonies. The lyrics—addressing love, friendship, time, and the universal travails of travel—combine the poetic and plain-spoken, hitting a sweet spot of ethereal and relatable as bridges are built, crossed, burned, and rebuilt. In celebration of the release, the trio will return to the road including three sold-out shows at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium and a stop in Buffalo, NY.

This fall 20 x Grammy® Award Winning Guitarist and Composer Pat Metheny is launching a solo tour which will coincide with a new album release on BMG Modern Recordings, “Dream Box”. The tour, a first of its kind for Metheny, will feature personal and fan favorites from his nearly 50 year career.

Chase Rice, Joe Nichols, Randy Houser, Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line and Hailey Whitters

Beginning with his 1994 debut, "Welcome To The Cruel World," Ben Harper released a string of eight studio albums over a decade and a half. This extraordinary run, featuring contributions from the Innocent Criminals, established him as a powerful singer-songwriter, musician, and producer with a range across multiple genres and an unmatched ability to blend the personal and political.

Emmy-nominated, multi-platinum selling musician and composer Ben Folds brings his popular solo Paper Airplane Request Tour to the UB Center for the Arts Mainstage this fall.

Join us for jazz vocalist sensation, Samara Joy, in a concert celebrating the season in A JOYFUL HOLIDAY featuring Samara and the McLendon Family.  The three-time Grammy winner will be performing with a group that includes Shedrick Mitchell on piano, Eric Wheeler on bass, and Charles Haynes on drums as well as members of her musical McLendon family, including her father, Antonio.

Legendary Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones named the “premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation” by The New Yorker has interpreted an extraordinarily wide range of songs throughout her career. Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-woman, African-American a cappella ensemble, and three-time Grammy award–nominated troupe who express their history as black women through song, dance, and sign language. These artists will perform at the Center for the Arts for a special performance this fall.