Description
November 15-24, 2019 | Performances at 8:00pm on Fridays and Saturdays, 3:00pm on Sundays
Composer and violinist Diane Monroe draws on her decades-long, genre-defying career to craft a musical memoir that bridges jazz, classical and traditional African music, revealing an African-American violinist's trials and triumphs. This story of personal and collective histories will be told through a collage of original music, visual art and spoken word. The evening-length suite will be performed by an ensemble that includes violin, banjo, west African kora and Western String quartet.
With musical boundaries lessening, artists are ever-more challenged to define our own identities and voices. With this work I am challenging myself to not only disrupt musical classifications and hierarchies, but also to examine what it means for me to be an African-American woman.
For this new piece, Monroe has worked with visual artist and scholar Curlee Raven Holton, drawing inspiration from his paintings and prints, using that inspiration to reflect on her life journey and to write music fueled by her experience as an African-American woman—Monroe employs a quintessentially Western instrument to collapse boundaries between musical styles that often occupy distinct silos. Holton's artwork will be incorporated into the scenic design for the premiere performances at Cliveden.
Monroe's other collaborators on the project include renowned string quartet PubliQuartet, internationally recognized master of West African kora and storytelling Yacouba Sissoko, and Ayodele Maakheru, who has played banjo, guitar, and multiple other stringed instruments on Broadway and across the world for over three decades. A rhythm section composed of bassist Lee Smith, hand percussionist Leonard “Doc” Gibbs and drummer Harry “Butch” Reed completes the eclectic ensemble.
Performances will run 85 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.
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