Musician and IU professor Monika Herzig’s Sheroes, an all-female music group, will perform at 8 p.m. March 7 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The show is presented in celebration of International Women's Day on March 8 and the 100th Anniversary of the Women's Suffrage Movement. The performance will also include Bloomington-based singer-songwriter Krista Detor.
The concert will follow Jazz Girls Day, a jazz music workshop for girls 12-18 from 12-6 p.m. at the Monroe County Public Library. Herzig, who started the band in 2015, said they will put the girls into groups of two to three, and each group will be mentored by the Sheroes band members.
“Each group will have the opportunity to open up for the band at the evening show and play the songs that they learned,” Herzig, a senior lecturer at at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said.
Herzig said she started the band because jazz bands are often dominated by men, and she wanted to give women the opportunity to showcase their skills in jazz music.
“In jazz bands, you often have the token woman,” Herzig said. “There is a lot of pressure to succeed in that role, and that is part of the reason why I started this band.”
Herzig attributes the lack of female representation in jazz music to the absence of role models and educators in the field.
“Women performing shouldn’t be an emerging field anymore,” Herzig said. “There are enough capable, great players out there.”
This New-York based group will release a new album titled “Eternal Dance” next month.
Each individual musician writes songs for the band to perform together.
“We get to collaborate on each other’s pieces,” Herzig said. “The musician’s own pieces make up our repertoire.”
Rebecca Stanze, associate director at the Buskirk-Chumley, said the theater has had a long standing relationship with Herzig and Detor.
Tickets are $25-$35 for this reserved seating show and can be purchased at the BCT Box Office website, by calling the box office or at the BCT Box Office & Downtown Visitors Center. Tickets can also be purchased at the door. The box office will close a half hour before show time.
