NORWICH – Spearheading the 2017-18 music and performance series of the Chenango Arts Council this weekend, Matt Nakoa, an internationally recognized performer with ties to Chenango County will take stage mere minutes from where it all began this Saturday, September 23 beginning at 7 p.m.

While Nakoa grew up in Smyrna in northern Chenango County, he’s been on the road for more than a decade as a touring musician. Recent stops have included Texas, Oregon, North Carolina, the Midwest and New York City, but Boston is where he writes and records.

He began his music career with the intent to become a concert pianist and composer, and he also studied vocal performance at the Berklee College of Music in Boston where he worked alongside Grammy winners St. Vincent and Esperanza Spalding.

On the piano bar scene in New York City, audiences lined around the building to hear him play at Brandy’s Piano Bar, but it was in the Fox Run recording studio in Boston where producer Neale Eckstein first introduced Nakoa to the contemporary acoustic music scene.