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Carnegie Hall Citywide, Bang On A Can Long Play Festival, So Percussion & WoCo Fest

April & May Shows

WoCo Fest 2022 AMAZE

Saturday May 28, 3:00PM
LEILA ADU

AMP by Strathmore welcomes WoCo Fest 2022 AMAZE, produced by Boulanger Initiative and co-presented by Strathmore.  Boulanger Initiative advocates and provides opportunities for women composers and all gender marginalized composers through performance, education, and commissions.  WoCo Fest 2022 will take place at AMP by Strathmore and tickets can be purchased for individual sessions or full day pass.
Info: https://www.strathmore.org/what-s-on/what-s-on-at-amp/woco-festival-2022-amaze/#bios

Standard Ticket: https://secure.strathmore.org/19974/19984
Full Festival Pass: https://secure.strathmore.org/19974/19975


Carnegie Hall Citywide: Asphalt Orchestra

Sunday May 22, 12:00pm
LEILA ADU-GILMORE CARNEGIE HALL COMMISSION COMPOSITION PREMIÈRE 

Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Julia Wolfe caps her Carnegie Hall residency with a one-of-a-kind event in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, featuring new-music marching band Asphalt Orchestra, called “part parade spectacle, part halftime show, and part cutting-edge contemporary music concert … coolly brilliant and infectious” by The New York Times. Also featuring guest artists Pan In Motion, the program includes world premieres by first-time Carnegie Hall–commissioned composers Leila Adu, Jeffrey Brooks, and Kendall Williams, further highlighting Wolfe’s longtime reputation as a champion of innovative new works. Catch the beginning of the performance at the side of the park near the New York Public Library, or join the performers along the way as they march toward the main lawn!
Part of: Carnegie Hall Citywide and Julia Wolfe
Info: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2022/05/22/Carnegie-Hall-Citywide-Asphalt-Orchestra-1200PM

Free Event

Bryant Park | Stage
Between 40th and 42nd streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues | Manhattan
New York


Bang on a Can‘s LONG PLAY festival

May 1st, 3:00pm
LEILA ADU

LONG PLAY is an explosion of mind-bending music of the moment.

Over the May Day weekend of 2022, LONG PLAY brings 60+ performances at 8 venues over 3 days to Downtown, Brooklyn NYC: Bang on a Can announces the launch of LONG PLAY, a new, three-day destination music festival. Originally scheduled for May of 2020… Featuring dozens of concerts, LONG PLAY also showcases a dense network of pioneering music venues in Brooklyn – with performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Roulette, Public Records, Littlefield, Mark Morris Dance Center, The Center for Fiction, outdoor events at The Plaza at 300 Ashland, and more. Bang on a Can’s Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, say of the new festival:

“Right now – this minute – is an amazing time to love music. Musicians and listeners from every corner of the music world are pushing beyond their boundaries, questioning their roots, searching and stretching for the new. There has never been a time when music contained so much innovation and diversity, so much audacity and so much courage. And we want to show you all of it. With the creation of LONG PLAY we are presenting more kinds of musicians, playing more kinds of music, bending more kinds of minds. LONG PLAY expands and enlarges our scope and our reach, and puts more new faces on stages than ever before. It’s a lot of music!”

Fueled by more than three decades of Marathon concerts, the LOUD Weekend festival at MASS MoCA, countless world tours and staged productions, Bang on a Can’s LONG PLAY is a supercharged ride through right now – for musicians and audiences alike.

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/long-play-festival-2022-tickets-255193971037

BAM – The Adam
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217


Sō Percussion’s Brooklyn Bound Jam

Thursday April 14, 8pm (in-person + online)
WITH LEILA ADU, SŌ PERCUSSION, SANDBOX PERCUSSION, BARD PERCUSSION

Our sixth Brooklyn Bound of the season features works by Leila Adu-Gilmore, Andy Akiho, and Kendall Williams, performed by Sō Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Bard Percussion, and Leila Adu-Gilmore.
This event will be streamed here on FB and on YouTube. You may now attend this event in person!
____________
Read more about the performers here:
Sō Percussion: https://sopercussion.com/events/brooklyn-bound/
Leila Adu-Gilmore:
Website: http://www.leilaadu.com/about/
Sandbox Percussion:
https://sandboxpercussion.com/
Instagram: @sandbox_percussion
Facebook: @sandboxpercussion
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/sandboxpercussion
Bard Percussion: https://sopercussion.com/
Facebook: @bardpercussion
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Now in its ninth season, Brooklyn Bound is a popular series of concerts at Sō’s working studio in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn. When social distance became a necessity, we decided to create a new version and transition to a fully virtual one. Casual and intimate, the concerts feature us and emerging ensembles from our local scene. The groups are encouraged to try out new material, premier new commissions, completely experiment, or just get another performance under their belt.
Brooklyn Bound is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

100% of contributions made during this event will go directly to the New Work Development Program to support commissions by Shodekeh Talifero, Claire Rousay, and Leilehua Lanzilotti!
Tickets: $10 suggested donation https://sopercussion.com/donate/

Online (or In-Person below): Facebook event & YouTube stream

20 Grand Ave,
Brooklyn, NY

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Xmas: Carol for Grammy Winning Choir, London Sinfonietta Podcast & A Composing Video for Kids!

Leila recently appeared on The London Sinfonietta Podcast to discuss her recent collaboration with the ensemble and explains the background of the songs that make up “Freedom Suite” that was presented as part of Yet Unheard, a concert program that focused on black composers and was co-curated by George Lewis and Elaine Mitchener.

In addition to appearing on the podcast, Leila also collaborated with The London Sinfonietta to create an educational Composition Challenge designed as a tool for educators. The text setting of  her composition “Ghost Lullaby” — reflecting Native American peoples and lands — is used as an example:

On a similar note, Leila also wrote an article “Critical Sonic Practice: Decolonizing Boundaries in Music Research” on themes of decolonization in the Journal of Journal of Continental Thought & Theory: A Journal of Intellectual Freedom in a special issue of Thinking Music: Praxis and Aesthetics.

Leila recently collaborated with cutting-edge and Grammy Award winning, The Crossing Choir as part of their Carols After A Plague project, with their expansive interpretation of carols. Take a sneak peak of “Colouring-In Book” (see full program note and lyrics at YouTube) before the upcoming album release!

 

 

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String Quartet at Lincoln Center

The visionary new string quartet, The Overlook Quartet, brings a program of works by 20th and 21st century female composers to Chamber Music NY this fall. The four works by Leila Adu, Eleanor Alberga, Shelley Washington, and Florence Price, journey from the celestial to the terrestrial. Adu’s “If the Stars Align,” incorporates spectralist microtonal harmonies
seamlessly with Baroque viol and Ghanaian highlife music.

Chamber Music NY presents: The Overlook Quartet at Lincoln Center

Saturday, October 23, 8:00pm
Bruno Walter Auditorium at the NYPL for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center
111 Amsterdam Avenue at West 65th St | NYC
Chamber music ny |No ticket required
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Leila Adu Songs at NYC’s Museum of Art & Design

Leila Adu, an astonishing force in the space where electropop, avant-classical and singer-songwriter meet, gives a solo performance on voice and piano of her own music, joined by longtime bassist and collaborator Jon Toscano.

GatherNYC Presents:
Leila Adu

Sunday, October 10, 10:30AM

Museum of Art & Design
2 Columbus Circle | NYC
Tickets can be purchased here

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Black-Crowned Night-Heron World Premiere

July 31, 2021, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts
6 P.M. Hunter Center

Mark Stewart presents the world premiere of  “Black-Crowned Night Heron” for electric guitar and voice, alongside premieres of compositions by Jeffrey Brooks, Sophie Cash, Florent Ghys, and Trevor Weston.

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America/Beautiful: 70 Variations on NPR and NBC

 

Steinway pianist Min Kwon commissioned 70 composers, including Tania León, Nico Muhly, George Lewis and Vijay Iyer to create variations on America The Beautiful. See Leila Adu-Gilmore’s “United Underdog” at the world première.

Read the full NPR story here
Watch the full NBC feature here

While some of us baked bread, sewed masks, or doom-scrolled through the latest “Breaking News,” internationally-celebrated pianist, arts advocate and educator Min Kwon was busy Zooming with American composers, from aspiring young students to Pulitzer Prize winners, from as young as 20 years old to as old as 93, inviting them to come together and contribute their unique, individual talents—to create something altogether new—much like the American experiment itself.  Though it would end up both enabled and shaped by it, the idea of bringing American composers together to write variations of “America the Beautiful” wasn’t born of the pandemic. Inspired by the famous Diabelli’s variations written over 200 years ago in Vienna, Kwon already had the vision to create something fresh for the 21st century before the pandemic hit in March. Almost a year later, she has a compendium of over 70 variations on what’s often been called “the national hymn.”

Leila joins Victoria Bond, Charles Coleman, David Serkin Ludwig, Jessica Meyer, Patricio Molina, Qasim Naqvi, Greg Sandow, Juri Seo, Trevor Weston on a concert of pieces commissioned by Min Kwon for the project on July 8th at the Greenwood Cemetary.

Tickets can be purchased here

 

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First Post-Lockdown Live Show: Leila Adu Trio with PUBLIQuartet

Leila Adu will play her first post-lockdown show on Tuesday, May 25, at 8pm at Roulette in Brooklyn. She’ll be performing an evening of her own music with her trio and a string quartet, PUBLIQuartet. A limited number of in-person tickets will be available, and the show will stream on Roulette’s website.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021. 8:00 pm
(Doors 7:00 pm)

Leila Adu Trio with PUBLIQuartet

Leila Adu Trio with PUBLIQuartet

One heroine’s journey through personal heartbreak to universal political truths and transfiguration. A mixture of art, song, and improv, composer and performer Leila Adu’s vocal and piano performances transform and uplift hearts across the globe. In her first post-lockdown intimate live show, Adu’s impressionistic love songs and fierce protest songs emit hope for our future. Adu’s Roulette performance combines her trio, including long-time collaborator, bassist Jon Toscano with one of New York’s premier string quartets, PUBLIQuartet.

Leila Adu: voice / piano
Jon Toscano: bass
David Frazier: drums
Curtis Stewart: violin
Jannina Norpoth: violin
Nick Revel: viola
Hamilton Berry: cello

Free Streaming is available, donate to Roulette

Purchase Limited Capcity Live-Show Tickets

Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue
(Corner of Third Avenue)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
NEW YORK 

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Five Black Composers, Incarcerated Poets, and an Opera

Leila Adu is also one of five Black composers who have written the score for Death by Life, a new opera commissioned and presented by White Snake Projects, with online performances on May 20, 22, and 25. The opera explores the intersection of systemic racism and mass incarceration using texts written by incarcerated writers and their families. Learn more on White Snake’s website

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Leila Adu Contributes to the New York Times

Leila Adu contributed to Zachary Woolfe’s 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Choral Music in the New York Times

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Mahakala Oratorio Première

Chatterbird presents the virtual world premiere of Mahakala Oratorio, by composer Leila Adu. Join us for this free event as chatterbird presents this one-of-a-kind video project, featuring contributions from interactive media artist Aaron Sherwood, along with the talents of Videographer Lauren Balthrop and Recording Engineer Kevin Edlin.

Mahakala Oratorio will feature 14 chatterbird musicians, led by conductor Joe Lee, along with the vocal talents of Rebekah Alexander and Leila Adu.

Following the world premiere, chatterbird will host a virtual Q&A panel with Adu, chatterbird musicians, and others involved in the recording process. The Q&A will be facilitated by Colleen Phelps, the Host of “Classically Speaking” on Nashville Public Radio.

Mahakala Oratorio’s inspiration draws directly from the Buddhist deity of the same name. Leila Adu adapted Plainsong Pujua of Mahakala, originally compiled by Lama Chimé Shore from ancient texts from the late Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche and the late Ven. Kalu Rinpoche, describing Mahakala as a tool to empower listeners to consider the idea of radical compassion in this era of social, political, and environmental extremism.There are abusive states, new in the world. Look now all around! There are abusive states careless of all life, immersed in selfish wants. Burn the fog of apathy, burn the fog of apathy, burn the fog of apathy!” The music itself reflects Leila’s genre-mixing style, which draws on the traditional music of New Zealand; her informal training in punk, indie, and hip-hop as well as freely improvised music in the African-American free jazz tradition; and formal training for chamber ensemble and orchestra.

This project is supported in part by New Music USA, Tennessee Arts Commission, Metro Arts, Puffin Foundation West, LTD., and MediaTHE Foundation.

To find out more about Chatterbird or experience Mahakala Oratorio post-première:
http://www.chatterbird.org

Mahakala Oratorio Première & post-concert Q&A

  • To find out more about Chatterbird or experience Mahakala Oratorio post-première: http://www.chatterbird.org
  • Following the world premiere, chatterbird will host a virtual Q&A panel with Adu, chatterbird musicians, and others involved in the recording process. The Q&A will be facilitated by Colleen Phelps, the Host of “Classically Speaking” on Nashville Public Radio. Register HERE for the post-concert Q&A: https://bit.ly/3a3velH

Thursday, December 17: 7PM CST / 8PMEST (Fri Dec 18: Wellington NZ 2-2.30PM/Perth Aus 9-9.30am)
Watch Mahakala Oratorio Première