Fogartyville Songwriter Series Hosted by Alicia Merritt featuring Zooey Seraphine and Amanda Abizaid| Monday, March 10, 7 p.m. | Doors open at 6 p.m.
Tickets: $8 members; $10 not-yet-members; $5 students (13+)
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Alicia Merritt writes her music with a mixture of genres: Celtic, country, pop, folk, Americana, and gospel. Her musical influences include Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Brown, The Eagles, Eva Cassidy, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams , Sr., as well as the Coors, Loreena McKennitt, the Pogues, and the Drop-Kick Murphys.
Her 1998 CD “Celtic Dream” was nominated for four Grammys including best traditional folk album. She toured the country with her Celtic group, the Alicia Merritt Ceilidh Band as regulars on the Celtic festival circuit during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Festivals included Long’s Peak Scottish Festival in Estes Park, Colorado, the Ozark Scottish Festival in Batesville, Arkansas, and the Scottish Highland Games and Celtic Festival in Ocala, Florida.
She also performed at Harrah’s and Fitzgerald’s in Las Vegas, Reno, and Tunica. At this time, she worked for the Memphis Arts Council as an itinerant teaching artist, taking her band up and down the edge of west Tennessee to perform for school audiences and teach about Celtic culture. Later, she moved to Nashville and then to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where she performed and recorded, as well.
Upon arriving in southwest Florida back in 2019, she was pleasantly surprised to find such receptive audiences for Celtic and her own eclectic blend of music. At first, she lived in the Englewood area, and was a regular at Punta Gorda’s Celtic Ray.
Since arriving in Sarasota, she has also encountered wonderful audiences at venues like McGrath’s and Tamiami Tap. Life has quieted down a bit since her touring days as she concentrates more on writing music. Her main interests also include her family, as well as her teaching and real estate career. Nowadays, she schedules concerts a little closer to home.
Alicia was also part an Irish Pub Tour in 2022 as part of Landrigan tours.
Amanda Abizaid is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist originally from Beirut, Lebanon with a powerful, sultry voice, captivating stage presence, meaningful lyrics and exotic melodies impossible not to take you on a journey. For music fans who love an international flair with a positive, conscious music that inspires, Amanda is the artist for you. Often her vocals have been described as a cross between Emel, Lana Del Ray and Sara Bareilles, musically her songs are a global crossover mix of Singer songwriter/pop meets Middle Eastern. Singer/songwriter, Amanda has won several awards from prestigious competitions such as The U.S.A. Songwriting Competition, Global Music Awards, Los Angeles Film Awards, Global Film Festival Awards, Clouzine International Music Awards, IMC and just recently was inducted into the Indie Music Hall of Fame for her lifetime achievement of musical compositions. New York Times thanked her for her vocals on the Emmy award winning theme song “A Place In Time” for Paramount’s The 4400. Amanda has had songs on Lifetime, Paramount, The CW, CSB, NBC and FOX and has performed live for audiences up to 3000 people. She has shared the stage with artists such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Lou Rawls Jr., David Ru^in Jr., Todd Sucherman (Styx), Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard), Bird York, Lily Haydn and others. Amanda was interviewed by Forbes.com and Kababyan Today with G Tongi LSA 18 TV for her 2018 album “Walking In Twos” featuring the legendary Stephen Stills. Fans around the world have gravitated to Amanda’s instinctive musical latent, her permanent smile and infectious laughter. Amanda has a vision for bringing the east and west together in song through music, and a talent that is truly living per purpose, you can’t help but get excited when you hear her voice.
As a versatile violinst, Zooey Seraphine has performed and recorded with various artists throughout Southeast Florida, on her path towards pushing the boundaries of the violin into all manners of styles from around the world.
Zooey Seraphine was classically trained in piano performance and chamber music, but also experimented with jazz and traditional Latin music, as well as other world music. Her influences include her own cultural heritage, music & ethnology professors, and a perpetually curious ear. When she entered the Sarasota music scene nearly a decade ago, she began to experiment with other styles, from folk and Americana to R&B, nuevo flamenco, swing, electronica, and funk in search of her own eclectic voice.
Zooey Seraphine performs as an independent violinist with acts throughout Florida and the Southeast, but her original music project, ZEN Seraphine, was born out of the journey of her own inner healing. Zooey Seraphine also immerses herself in sound healing traditions, as a leading sound healing practitioner, founder of The Sound Alchemy Method of sound therapy.
Since 2018, Zooey Seraphine also performs with Pedro Arevalo (of the Dickey Betts Band, and Duane Betts & Palmetto Motel) in their duo Pedro y Zooey. Follow her YouTube Channel, ZEN Seraphine, to see more of her musical explorations. And to discover more about her sound therapy services, please visit her Sound Alchemy with ZEN Seraphine website.
Sponsored by the Watts Family Endowment for Arts & Education.
