UA Music Alumnus, Student, and Faculty Featured in 'Sonic Images' Series

Sonic Images will present four internationally acclaimed and local musicians in a hard-swinging concert of "Rhythm and Blues," including two musicians with University of Arkansas ties.

Bassist Garrett Jones, guitarist Asher Perkins, Latin percussionist Fernando Valencia, and pianist Jeannine Wagar have teamed up to perform a concert that includes new compositions, jazz standards and hard-swinging blues for the last concert of the season for Sonic Images.

The "Rhythm and Blues" will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 5, at Fenix Fayetteville, 16 West Center St. on the Fayetteville Square. Cost: $10.

Garrett Jones, and Arkansas native, has performed for national and international touring acts including The Official Blues Brothers Revue, where he worked under the musical direction of Paul Shaffer, as well as Broadway touring productions of West Side Story, Spam-a-Lot and Wicked.

Fernando Valencia is a native of Colombia and a faculty member at the University of Arkansas in the areas of applied percussion and Latin American music. Valencia has recorded extensively in Colombia and the U.S. and has participated in Grammy-nominated and nationally broadcast recordings in the popular and classical arenas. 

Asher Perkins, student of Jake Hertzog, is a young, local, rising star in the music industry. He plays acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass, piano, drums and percussion. His genres include blues, funk, jazz, rock, country and bluegrass.

Jeannine Wagar, former conductor of the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has had a national and international symphonic orchestral conducting career and was a full time professor of music at Carleton College, Minnesota, and Hofstra University in New York. She received her doctorate in orchestra conducting from Stanford University.

Abount Fenix Fayetteville: Fenix Fayetteville is a self-governing group of emerging and established visual artists working in all disciplines. The group was founded in 2016 and is committed to a culture of mutual support, community and collaboration.