Hasidic Reggae Singer Matisyahu Performing Feb. 18

Tickets are now on sale for the Saturday, Feb. 18 concert at Bridges Auditorium with Hasidic reggae musician Matisyahu, a singer whose style has been called " wholly original."
Tickets, $14 for students and $24 for faculty, staff, and the general public, may be purchased from Jim Nauls in the Dean of Students office, or through the Bridges box office: 909-621-8032.
Matisyahu, born Matthew Paul Miller, grew up in White Plains, New York, attending Hebrew School part-time. By age 14, he grew dreadlocks, learned bongos and taught himself to beat-box. During his junior year of high school, the future singer says he experienced a life-altering spiritual awakening with Judaism while camping in Colorado.
At a school in Oregon that encouraged artistic pursuits, Matisyahu studied up on reggae and hip-hop and attended a weekly open-mic where he rapped, sang, beat-boxed, and developed his reggae-hip hop sound. A short time later, enrolled at The New School in Greenwich Village, he discovered the nearby synagogue Carlebach Shul, an encounterhe saysthat reaffirmed his interests in the mystical power of song in Hasidic Judaism.
Matisyahu, a member of the Lubavitch Hasidic Community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, wrote and recorded his first album while a student at Hadar Hatorah, a yeshiva for Jewish men.
His newest album, Youth, for Epic Records, will be released on March 7.
Matisyahu's visit is presented by the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College and Hillel at The Claremont Colleges, in association with Bridges Auditorium.
For more information: 909-621-8114.