Bobby McFerrin at the Warner Theatre

Bobby McFerrin presents VOCAbuLaries with Howard University's Afro Blue Reunion Choir
Roger Treece: Conducter/Music Director

Listening to Bobby McFerrin sing may be hazardous to your preconceptions.
Side effects may include unparalleled joy, a new perspective on creativity, rejection of the predictable, and a sudden, irreversible urge to lead a more spontaneous existence.

To some people, 10-time Grammy Award winner Bobby McFerrin will always be the guy who sang Don’t Worry, Be Happy. But if that song is all you know about Bobby McFerrin, sit back and prepare for a serious boggling of the mind. What Bobby McFerrin does is not an act; it’s spontaneous invention. His legendary solo performances and his collaborations with renowned artists -- including Herbie Hancock, Yo-Yo Ma, Chick Corea, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and The Vienna Philharmonic -- have toured the world, from Russia to Brazil to Japan to Abu Dhabi.

VOCAbuLarieS, Bobby McFerrin’s first new recording in eight years, harnesses his wildly joyful creativity and searching musical curiosity within a new framework, critically acclaimed as "McFerrin's finest moment on record as well as his most ambitious," "spiritually uplifting, utterly beguiling and deeply groovy". The album was nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2010, and honored by the NAACP as the year's Outstanding World Music Album. DownBeat magazine has extolled live performances of VOCAbuLarieS as “an exhilarating experience, creating a legacy that is unmatched in the history of popular or art song." The show has earned rave reviews and standing ovations at sold-out shows in cities around the world, in Munich, Prague, Vienna, San Francisco, London, New York, Montreal, and Helsinki; and on June 11, 2011 Howard University's Afro Blue Reunion Choir joined Bobby to bring this ground-breaking new choral repertoire to Washington, DC's Warner Theatre.

Bobby McFerrin and Howard University's Afro Blue Reunion Choir. Photo: Wilbur Allen

Reviews: 
“Bobby McFerrin's appearance with Afro Blue last night at the Warner Theatre was the finest concert in the history of the D.C. Jazz Festival…This performance was, from start to finish, a glorious, unqualified triumph.”

“The [Bobby McFerrin] evening was as close to perfection as any I've ever seen on stage, in any medium…”
-Michael J. West, Washington City Paper

Mixing musical mastery with inimitable showmanship and an inviting energy, the [Bobby McFerrin] concert was not only the best of this year's festival, but possibly the best show of any of its seven iterations.
-Sriram Gopal, DCist

In the end, when virtually everyone in the house was standing and applauding, including all the performers, McFerrin seemed every bit as happy with the concert as his fans, which is saying a lot.
-Mike Joyce, The Washington Post