Dublin, Ohio – Officials of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide announced today the details of its 2017 benefit concert. Entering its 11th year, IGS Energy Evening with David Gray presented by City of Dublin will benefit the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation and Nationwide Children’s Hospital alliance. Proceeds will support the Memorial Tournament Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
With the continued support of IGS Energy, now entering its eighth year as title sponsor, and City of Dublin who has backed the event from its inception in 2007, the benefit concert has raised more than $690,000 for Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
"We are thrilled to once again support this amazing concert event that benefits such a worthy cause. As a Central Ohio-based company, we are proud to give back to the communities we serve," said Scott White, president and CEO of IGS Energy.
The 11th annual benefit concert will be held Saturday, May 20, at EXPRESS LIVE! in Columbus. Special guest Shawn Colvin will take the stage first, followed by David Gray. VIP doors open at 6 p.m. EDT. Tickets are now available at $175 per person or $350 per couple. For more information, please visit www.mtbenefitconcert.com or call (614) 355-5400.
In June 2010, a charitable alliance was announced among the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation for the benefit and advancement of pediatric care. With this aligned vision, all proceeds of the concert directly benefit the young patients served each day by the Memorial Tournament NICU at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Advancing newborn critical care in the Memorial Tournament NICU is already evident with its family-centered environment that provides the highest quality of medical care for premature and sick infants. As part of the largest neonatal network in the country, the Memorial Tournament NICU is comprised of rigorously trained neonatologists, advanced practice nurses and therapists who utilize an interdisciplinary care approach to diagnose and treat patients suffering from complications of prematurity, complex birth defects, respiratory distress and metabolic diseases. This combined expertise makes the Memorial Tournament NICU at Nationwide Children’s one of the finest in the nation.
General admission tickets for David Gray are on sale now at all Ticketmaster locations. General admission tickets do not benefit the Memorial Tournament NICU at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. For more information on general admission please visit www.PromoWestLive.com.
The 2017 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide is scheduled for May 29 – June 4 at Muirfield Village Golf Club. The public may call the Tournament Ticket Office 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays at 877-MT BADGE (877-682-2343) or visit www.memorialbadges.com to purchase badges. Youths 18 and under receive complimentary admission with a ticketed adult throughout Tournament week. Daily practice round tickets for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are also available. The cost is $35 and they are valid for all three practice-round days.
About David Gray: Twenty-one years since his first studio album, David Gray's tenth and latest, "Mutineers," finds the singer-songwriter steering into unfamiliar territory while cultivating a pugnacious but respectful relationship with his own history. "I think if you're going forward with an open heart, good things will happen," says David. "You have to sort of tear up the past and let it go."
David's past includes the phenomenal success of "White Ladder" (seven million copies sold), one of three UK number one albums, with records that became ubiquitous and others that needed to be sought out to be heard. It's a richness of terrain and experience over a duration that belies the traditions and expectations of popular music as surely as the songs themselves.
Despite such variance in both the content and reception of his prior output, the only certainty David had at the commencement of his new recording was the need to surprise himself, not just in terms of how he worked, but the ideas that drove him and the people he worked with.
"I always write melody first and lyrics second, so I started to write lyrics down and think, right, I'm going to put this to music now. And that was a bizarrely uncomfortable process. And I was layering my voice; something I just found myself doing on a lot of the new tracks. Again, to get away from the density of my voice, just the intensity of it, it's so loud, it's so intense, it's so direct -- so singing more softly, singing in falsetto, singing under the voice in a lower voice, finding new sounds, so that it was still me, but it sounded different."
It's a shift instantly audible on "Mutineers," an album whose ancestry David sees as more in the neighborhood of John Martyn's "Small Hours" perhaps than its predecessors in his own catalogue. As well as the change in tone there's a rising sense throughout the record, from the opening affirmation of "Back In The World" to its conclusion, of an artist liberated from even his own expectations.
"I got slightly away from the narrative of the kind of crucified middle aged man. I got into other more ethereal territory, and it was such a relief to me. And when these wide open vistas of the new sound began to emerge in front of my eyes, I rushed in."
David's collaborator, producer and occasional combatant during this raid on new horizons was Lamb's Andy Barlow. "His brief was -- don't let me make the same record I've made before, take me out of my comfort zone. And he's a very gentle kind of guy, but courageous. He really took me on creatively in a way that no one else has ever done. So I thought, yeah, this is going to work, but it was a tortured process because I found it so hard to take at times that he would tear up bits of my work in front of my eyes!"
Out of the apparent traumas of that procedure "tears, furniture getting thrown," something more sublime began to emerge. "I was reaching, I was feeling for things rather than knowing and placing, and something far more interesting happened, and there's such an authority about any recording that's made in the heat of the moment when you're actually discovering it as you're recording it."
It was spontaneity of process and feeling that, says David, recalled some aspects of making "White Ladder," in a bedroom studio back in 1997.
"It was a very special thing that happened [with 'White Ladder'] and it was only a blessing, but of course there are complications to the blessing. So the wonderful, graceful arc that it traced from obscurity into ubiquity was a tremendous thing and the entire upward curve of it was exhilarating in the extreme. And not only that, it didn't have anyone's permission, off we went. No one could take it away from us and it was a wonderful thing, but of course you go beyond a certain point and you're just kind of up on this very high plateau, success, and the game has changed. But I think now it's the morning after the night before -- I don't want to just be going on about that. Now I've got 15 years between me and it, and also I know I've done something here that has an authority that is inspiring me and I don't have to worry about my past or any of that. This record will speak, and then I think I'll be understood and I think the question will change a little. The lovely thing about this is we've had the time to experiment, and the experiment has been a wonderful success so far.
"Mutineers" then, is an experiment that seems to fizz with the joy of its own assembly. The sound of a musician making a clean break and some sharp turns but also reconnecting with the freedoms of an earlier dream, a rebuke and a salutation to all that's gone before.
Official Website: www.davidgray.com
About the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide
The Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide is held annually at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. The Tournament, founded and hosted by Jack Nicklaus, is conducted each year with three goals in mind: to honor the memory of individuals living and deceased who have distinguished themselves in the game of golf; to showcase the world’s best golfers competing on one of the most challenging venues in the world for the enjoyment of spectators; and to benefit many Greater Columbus Charities in alliance with the Nicklaus Children's Healthcare Foundation, Nationwide Children's Hospital and numerous other local organizations. For more information, visit www.thememorialtournament.com or call 614-889-6700.
About Nationwide
Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor’s. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, commercial, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; banking and mortgages; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.
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Media Contact
Thomas P. Sprouse
Director of Communications,
the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide
E-Mail: tsprouse@thememorialtournament.com
Office: 614-889-6791
Mobile: 614-519-1873