On musician Matthew Whitaker’s third birthday, he played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on a toy Yamaha keyboard that was a birthday gift from his grandfather. But he couldn’t see the keys—blind since birth, Whitaker had heard the song and figured out how to play it. Now, the pianist who has earned comparisons to Stevie Wonder is a rising star, a three-time Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Award winner. He’s played the Apollo Theater and for audiences around the world and collaborated with jazz giants including Regina Carter, Jon Batiste, and Christian McBride.
Whitaker, who advocates for people with disabilities when he’s not captivating audiences, is coming to NC State for a performance in Stewart Theatre on Friday. A former child prodigy, scientists are studying Whitaker’s brain for clues to understanding his musical vision. See and learn about that vision for yourself in a not-to-be-missed performance and post-performance chat with the artist. —Jane Porter
To attend
Durham at a Crossroads: The 1986 Mayoral Recall Battle
Saturday, January 25, 3 p.m. | Durham County Main Library, Durham
In the ultra-blue Durham of 2025, it’s hard to imagine a mayor facing a recall election on the basis of their solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. But in 1986, against the backdrop of the decline of the manufacturing economy, the city split over Mayor Wib Gulley’s signing of an antidiscrimination proclamation that called for equal treatment of gay and lesbian residents. Factions broke out—some seeking to recall the mayor, others in support of the proclamation—and the community became fiercely divided.
In the end, the tolerant faction won out, a turning point that gave the Bull City a post-manufacturing identity to grow into. In a discussion hosted by the Durham County Library and moderated by Eddie Davis, panelists Steve Schewel, Mab Segrest, Mandy Carter, Joe Harvard, and Leah Wise look back. Registration is required, but if you can’t make it, the event will be recorded and shared virtually at a later date. —Chase Pellegrini de Paur
more things to do in the triangle this week
With cutting-edge spaces like Missy Lane’s and Sharp 9 Gallery accessible and NCCU’s renowned jazz studies program down the road, jazz is well and alive in the Bull City. But if you’re new to or a little intimidated by jazz, gateway artists like Joshua Espinoza’s trio group are the way to go: Espinoza, a Latino-American pianist based in Baltimore, has made it his mission to make people fall in love with the genre by translating popular music to jazz. Expect to hear songs by The Beatles, Eagles, and Billy Joel performed by Espinoza alongside bassist Kris Monson and drummer Jaron Lamar Davis. Admission is $30 and doors open 45 minutes before the show starts. —Sarah Edwards
Durham’s M. C. Taylor has a prolific career, packed with albums and awards (and bucolic INDY cover stories), but all vocations have an origin point: For Taylor, that was 2010, the year he sat down at his kitchen table and wrote the album Bad Debt, pressing 200 initial vinyl records. It wasn’t his first album, but it was one that was creatively formative—Bad Debt, Taylor told the INDY in 2018, “changed my life on a molecular level. I found a thing that I could do.”
At this seated solo show, Taylor revisits the experience with a performance of Bad Debt. Lou Hazel, a Durham singer-songwriter with an endearing Dylan sound, opens. For an artist with as deep a history and catalog as Taylor, I love this idea of celebrating a single album and moment in time. —SE
To attend
Sam Green: 32 Sounds
January 25, 7:30 p.m. & January 26, 2 p.m. | Reynolds Industry Theater, Durham
Theoretically, a recommendation should have a somewhat informed perspective from its writer, but I can’t pretend to know what the 32 Sounds experience will be like. It’s intriguingly billed as a cinematic performance—a documentary, sensory activity, and live collaboration all rolled into one.
Across two Duke Arts weekend events, Oscar-nominated documentarian Sam Green invites you to put on headphones and lose yourself to sound—not just in traditional music, but in the calming purr of a cat, the satisfying whirl of skates across ice, the slightest sound that can evoke a flood of emotions. Green’s documentary 32 Sounds is also available to screen on the Criterion Collection, but this performance is the real deal: DJ/composer JD Samson performs the soundtrack score live. —SE
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