Name: DrumatiX: Rhythm, Redefined!
Start: 2026-10-25T11:30:00
Location: The Ford

Jeze Zankich

Emma Edythe

Amanda Martz

Amaya Rodriguez

Anessa Davies

Noa Barankin

DrumatiX

The Ford

When filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris heard DeVotchKa’s evocative sound drifting through the airwaves on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, they knew they’d found the emotional heartbeat for their 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine.

With songs like “Til the End of Time” and “How It Ends,” DeVotchKa’s Grammy-nominated soundtrack captured themes of hope, resilience, and beautifully imperfect dreams.

DeVotchKa: A Celebration of the Music of Little Miss Sunshine

AMERICA(!) THE BEAUTIFUL(?) is an immersive evening of performance and civic imagination. Curated and hosted by artist and cultural strategist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, this event brings together multidisciplinary artists who’ve been tasked with creating a set that answers one question: “When in your American life have you felt most free?”

Acclaimed poet and musician aja monet, joined by a live band, headlines the night blending jazz, soul, and spoken word. Much like her 2023 album When the Poems Do What They Do, which Exclaim! magazine called “a roadmap to somewhere greater,” monet’s performance moves between tenderness and power, inviting audiences into radical love and a renewed sense of freedom.

AMERICA(!) THE BEAUTIFUL(?) With aja monet, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Xiuhtezcatl, Kai the Universe

Thomas Brenneck and Jared Tankel started Diamond West Records in 2022 as a label with an appetite for the adventurous that’s grounded in soul music. With a vision informed by their experiences—Brenneck as a producer for the likes of Amy Winehouse and Anderson .Paak, Tankel as leader of cult favorites The Budos Band—they’ve put out a stream of acclaimed records with a distinctive sound: warm, globally informed, and profoundly felt. 

Diamond West Showcase

Punch Brothers, formed by mandolinist Chris Thile in 2006, is known for pushing the boundaries of acoustic music. In addition to Thile, the band currently comprises guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjoist Noam Pikelny, and violinist Brittany Haas. Punch Brothers has garnered critical acclaim, including a Grammy for Best Folk Album for All Ashore (2018). The Washington Post applauded them for taking “bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart.”

Punch Brothers

This is not a concert. It's not a political rally. It's a call to action. A chance to feel the thump of bass and the thump in your heart. To be moved by booming and socially conscious hip-hop and move deeper into grassroots community building. Inspired by the spirit of his 2024 album Party Worker, Bambu flips the live hip-hop script, inviting the audience to think of themselves as equals in conversation. Far from a passive night of entertainment, this is a night of engagement with and among artists who understand that culture isn't separate from community work. Expect sharp verses and live energy. Expect to hear ideas worked out in real time. Expect a night like you've never seen before.

Bambu: Bass Building

With an ambitious, universal sound that encompasses orchestral composition, folk songwriting, jazz, R&B, rap, and pop, multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier already has seven Grammy wins under his belt, and he’s teamed up with musicians the world over—everybody from SZA to Coldplay to Hans Zimmer. Following his triumphant concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall last fall, he rolls into The Ford for two nights of his Light For Days Tour, playing solo.

Jacob Collier

MAROONS is a genre-bending theatrical performance that reimagines the history of marronage (resisting or liberating oneself from slavery) as a living, time-bending practice of escape and collective freedom. Set in 1833 and beyond, the work opens with a real runaway slave advertisement and blossoms into a layered journey following Eve and Celine, two women who refuse the conditions imposed on them and make a daring escape toward a hidden colony of maroons. Along the way, they encounter shifting timelines, ancestral voices, and a network of maroons who exist across the past, present, and future. Their journey is guided by coded messages and ritual, revealing freedom as something built in movement and refusal. The performance blends theater, music, choreography, and visual spectacle to create an immersive world where history fractures and reassembles with maroons like Harriet Tubman. MAROONS transforms the stage into a portal and invites the audience into a space filled with new possibilities emerging from the refusal of oppressive systems.

Maroons

Sam Beam is a singer-songwriter who has been creating music as Iron & Wine for nearly three decades. Through the course of eight albums, numerous EPs and singles, and the initial volumes of an Archive Series, Iron & Wine has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with distinctly cinematic songs. He comes to The Ford following the release of Hen’s Teeth, which Paste called “an album that finds solace in sorrow…and watching something bigger than yourself flourish from an act of giving.”

Iron & Wine

Julian Lage has long been considered one of the most creative guitarists in jazz, bringing together seemingly incompatible sounds: the cool, crisp world of Wes Montgomery, the skronk of downtown New York experimentalist John Zorn, and basically everything in between. On his latest album, Scenes from Above, he joins with bassist Jorge Roeder, drummer Kenny Wollesen, and vaunted keyboardist John Medeski for a set that takes inspiration from folkloric music like early calypso, American blues, and the Romanian and Hungarian tunes Béla Bartók worked into his own music. Together with his ensemble, he presents a night of improv, melody, and soul.

Julian Lage featuring John Medeski, Jorge Roeder, Kenny Wollesen

Join us for a cinematic evening under the stars soundtracked by Lifafa and Arushi Jain—two brilliant and innovative voices in today’s South Asian musical landscape.

Making his North American debut with his only scheduled US performance, Lifafa uses disco, sampled loops, cosmic guitar, and folk instruments, bridging traditional sounds with contemporary electronic production. Sung in Urdu and Hindi, his deeply personal music defies what an Indian musician should sound like and instead offers a vision of what the future of the music from the region could be. 

Music Beyond Borders: Discostan with Lifafa and Arushi Jain

DrumatiX brings an interactive, high-energy performance that transforms recycled and found objects into rhythmic and musical soundscapes. Using tap dance, body percussion, drumming, humor, and inventive choreography, this family-friendly show celebrates creativity, sustainability, and the joy of making something new from what already exists.

DrumatiX: Rhythm, Redefined!

Main Character Energy is a movie night that refuses to stay quiet. Talkback is not only encouraged, it is invited. For one night only, ARRAY transforms The Ford into a cinematic storytelling experience curated and hosted by writer and director Ava DuVernay. Clips from iconic films that honor our shared humanity are paired with vibrant voices from today’s most captivating thought leaders, artists, actors, and filmmakers. Throughout the night, you will not just watch… you will respond, and at times, you will even step into the scene. On this night, you are not a viewer. You are the main character.