By Dirk Langeveld

WESTPORT — MoCA\CT’s annual concert series is off to a strong and soulful start, selling out this weekend’s debut concert featuring Morgan James.

The concert, featuring “horn-fueled rock classics remade through a soul lens,” will take place at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3rd, and marks the start of the museum’s MoCA\CT Presents series. A total of seven performances have been scheduled through May 27th, featuring jazz, classical, R&B, and cross-genre music.

James is visiting Westport as part of her Soul Remains Tour, in which she and her band will perform songs from her new album Soul Remains the Same as well as her 2023 album Nobody’s Fool.

James received her education at The Juilliard School and made her debut on Broadway in 2010, starring in The Addams Family alongside Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. She appeared in five Broadway companies in her career, while also beginning solo singing performances in New York City venues.

Following her appearance in Motown: The Musical in 2013, James was mentored by Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. She subsequently began producing albums, and became an independent artist in 2017. James has released six studio albums, including full covers of Jesus Christ Superstar and The Beatles’ The White Album.

According to James’ biography, she has a “particular taste for inserting herself into men’s spaces, twisting hyper-masculine songs to her will and changing their meaning in the process.” Soul Remains the Same takes this approach to tracks from groups like AC\DC, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Ozzy Osbourne, and The Smashing Pumpkins.

James has further built her audience by amassing a large online following, with her performances receiving more than 300 million views on YouTube. Several of her covers have achieved view counts of over 1 million, including those of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer,” Rag’n’Bone Man’s “Human,” and Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah.” 

MoCA\CT Presents aims to provide the rare opportunity for audiences in the Westport area to enjoy performances by Grammy and Emmy winners and internationally acclaimed artists in an intimate setting, with each concert hosting no more than 150 people. The next concert in the series will be the final round of the Heida Hermanns International Music Competition, taking place on Nov. 14th.

For more information on upcoming concerts, visit mocact.org.

Dirk Langeveld

^{_{Dirk Langeveld has worked as a news reporter, content marketing specialist, and freelance writer. He is the author of “The Artful Dodger: The 20-Year Pursuit of World War I Draft Dodger Grover Cleveland Bergdoll” and has contributed to several books on Connecticut history.}}