Project Led by Sparks & Wiry Cries, Cofounded by Assistant Professor Erika Switzer, Reviewed in the New York Times
A song cycle envisioned and commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries, an organization cofounded by Assistant Professor of Music Erika Switzer together with Martha Guth, premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on Thursday and at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on Sunday. Songs in Flight, which was reviewed by the New York Times, portrays the individual lives of fugitives from slavery in America and was composed by Shawn Okpebholo with texts curated by Tsitsi Ella Jaji of Duke University. The project was conceived in response to the “Freedom on the Move” database by Cornell University, an archive of digitized fugitive slave advertisements, and was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2021. “We at Sparks & Wiry Cries were honored to develop this project from inception to presentation alongside extraordinary artists who joined us in our mission of collaborative creation,” said Switzer. “Every member of the team dug deep to courageously represent and reflect upon the stories of self-emancipating individuals found within the Freedom on the Move database.” The song cycle is one of several Sparks & Wiry projects created to reinvigorate art song, a tradition of vocal music composition accompanied by piano, along with the organization’s songSLAM competition, which is now presenting in 10 cities and four countries.
Post Date: 01-18-2023
Post Date: 01-18-2023