• Suzanne Vega & Lenny Kaye
• 8pm seating / 9pm show
• Pairing Series

Manhattan native Suzanne Vega, known for her highly literate lyrics and eclectic folk-inspired music is one of contemporary folk music's greatest innovators and poets. In 1987, when her single "Luka" hit number 3 on the pop charts—earning her three Grammy nominations, including for Record of the Year—Vega ushered in a female, acoustic, folk-pop singer-songwriter movement that would include the likes of Tracy Chapman, Shawn Colvin, and Indigo Girls, as well as giving rise to the Lilith Fair phenomenon. Vega is an adventurous artist, stretching the boundaries of the singer-songwriter format and earned the nickname "The Mother of the MP3" when the key developer of the program found that Vega's voice was the perfect template to test the audio compression that would revolutionize music distribution. Last year Vega released her seventh album "On Beauty & Crime" and ventured further into the internet by becoming the first major recording artist to perform live in avatar form within the virtual world Second Life.

For this Pairings she is joined by her former studio collaborator, musician, writer and producer Lenny Kaye, a guitarist with poet-rocker Patti Smith since her band's inception more than thirty years ago. Kaye is also a notable author, and has penned a number of music books and anthologies, including "Waylon," the life story of Waylon Jennings; "Nuggets," long regarded as defining the genre of sixties' garage-rock; and "You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon," an impressionistic study of the romantic singers of the 1930's. He has worked in the studio with such artists as Suzanne Vega, Jim Carroll, Soul Asylum, Kristin Hersh, and Allen Ginsberg, and has been nominated three times for Grammy awards in the liner notes category.

Pairings is a unique "blend" at City Winery: an intimate concert series — served with fine wine — that will take place on City Winery's main stage every Thursday evening, starting in January 2009. Each concert will be preceded by an optional tasting or private dinner, followed by personal performances from some of today's most respected musicians. Pairings has been designed especially with City Winery's target audience of cool urban wine sophisticates in mind, and promises to be a stand-out program that draws from City Winery's core rudiments — wine, music and food — to create a holistic cultural evening unlike any other in Manhattan.