Kellen "Klassik" Abston: The Ark Performance

Reception to begin at 5:30 PM

About the Artist

Kellen “Klassik” Abston, a self-described “Black Pastoral Sonic Landscape Painter,” is an award-winning Milwaukee-born-and-based musician, producer, songwriter, performing artist, and community curator. Named the City of Milwaukee's 2021 Mildred L. Harpole Artist of the Year, Klassik's jazz-saturated hip-hop/soul, informed by years of traditional jazz study and Milwaukee Public Schools arts education, has taken him from summer festival stages and crowds of thousands, to classroom settings inspiring youth of all ages throughout Wisconsin. His 2019 LP, QUIET, was named the #1 album of the year by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and was awarded Critic's Choice and Solo Artist honors at the 2019 Radio Milwaukee Music Awards. 2022 saw Klassik collaborating with both the Milwaukee Art Museum, producing the original composition and video performance Nobody's Watching, and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, producing and performing an all-original score for their production of Brian Quijada’s Where Did We Sit on the Bus? In 2024, he again reprised the role of music director and performer with MCT for the season-opening retelling of Homer’s epic Iliad with An Iliad. A true "Klass Act,” Klassik works to stir the souls of listeners into action with empathy, passion, and purpose through his own vulnerable and self-reflective sonic art.