Celebrating the Lifetime Achievements of Wadada Leo Smith and Oliver Lake. The 26th annual Vision Festival: “A Light in Darkness” will bring together the bright & beautiful voices of top artists of various disciplines—FreeJazz, poetry, visual arts, dance, and more— to share the message of hope and justice with unfettered creativity. Since 1996, the Vision Festival has created and guaranteed a space for improvisation as a leading creative language, and has been named “one of New York’s most essential art events” by The New York Times.
Wadada Leo Smith: Celebrating a Lifetime of Achievement
Exhibition: Paintings, Photos, and Ankhrasmation Symbolic Language Score
509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn
7pm
Open Healing: Albert Ayler
Wadada Leo Smith – trumpet
Pheeroan akLaff – drums
7:20pm
Film: Butterfly Silver
by Robert Fenz excerpt (4 minutes)
7:30pm
RedKoral Quartet, String Quartet No. 10: Angela Davis into the Morning Sunlight
Shalini Vijayan – violin
Mona Tian – violin
Andrew McIntosh – viola
Ashley Walters – cello
8pm
Wadada Leo Smith’s Purple Kikuyu and RedKoral Quartet, “Flight 93 in Pennsylvania’s Sky: No Greater Love – A Remembrance of Their Beauty & Courage”
Wadada Leo Smith – trumpet
Pheeroan akLaff – drums
Erika Dohi – piano
Sylvie Courvoisier – piano
Shalini Vijayan – violin
Mona Tian – violin
Andrew McIntosh – viola
Ashley Walters – cello
8:30pm
Wadada Leo Smith’s Purple Kikuyu: New York City's Central Park in August
Wadada Leo Smith – trumpet
Pheeroan akLaff – drums
Erika Dohi – piano
Sylvie Courvoisier – piano
9pm
Thulani Davis with Wadada Leo Smith & RedKoral Quartet - Recitation and Music: Billie Holiday, Dark Lady of the Sonnet
Thulani Davis - poet
Shalini Vijayan – violin
Mona Tian – violin
Andrew McIntosh – viola
Ashley Walters – cello
9:30pm
Film: Trumpet and Camera
by Robert Fenz excerpt (10 minutes)
10pm
Prayer
Wadada Leo Smith – trumpet
Pheeroan akLaff – drums
7pm
Matthew Shipp Quartet
Matthew Shipp – piano
Jason Kao Hwang – violin
Michael Bisio – bass
Jay Rosen – drums
Katy Martin – projected paintings
8pm
Staircase in Space
Whit Dickey – drums
Rob Brown – alto sax
Brandon Lopez – bass
Jo Wood-Brown - projected paintings
9pm
KERNEL
Davalois Fearon – dance
Mike McGinnis – sax
9:30pm
Heart Trio
(formerly William Parker Trio)
William Parker – bass, percussion
Hamid Drake – drums, frame drum
Cooper-Moore – homemade instruments
Lois Eby – projected paintings
10:30pm
Rothenberg / Courvoisier / Drake
Ned Rothenberg – reeds
Sylvie Courvoisier – piano
Hamid Drake – drums
6:30pm
3×3 “HEAD IN THE SAND” to Tipping Utopia to Vision Festival by Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks
Dancers: Yoshiko Chuma, Miriam Parker, Emily Mare Pope
Jason Kao Hwang – violin
Steve Swell – trombone
Aliya Ultan – cello
7:30pm
C’est Trois
jaimie branch – trumpet
Luke Stewart – bass
Tcheser Holmes – drums
Scott Kiernan - live video art
8:30pm
Unnameable Element
Leo Chang – voice, piri
Chris Williams – trumpet
Lester St. Louis – cello
Miriam Parker – movement, video
9:30pm
James Brandon Lewis' Red Lily
James Brandon Lewis – tenor sax
Kirk Knuffke – cornet
William Parker – bass
Chad Taylor – drums
William Mazza – live video art
10:30pm
Nicole Mitchell Ensemble: Dreams of Awakening
Nicole Mitchell - flutes, composition
Ken Filiano – bass
Joshua White - piano
Val Jeanty – electronics, percussion
Terri Lyne Carrington – drums
6:30pm
Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few
Isaiah Collier – tenor sax
Jordan Williams – piano
Luke Stewart – bass
Tcheser Holmes – drums
7:30pm
SPARKS
Eri Yamamoto – piano
William Parker – bass
Chad Fowler – sax
Steve Hirsh – drums
Beatriz Sampaio – projected paintings
8:30pm
Ahmed Abdullah & Francisco Mora Catlett: Diaspora Meets AfroHORN
Ahmed Abdullah – trumpet
Francisco Mora Catlett – multi-percussion
Monique Ngozi Nri – vocals, poetry
Sam Newsome, Don Chapman – woodwinds
Bob Stewart – tuba
DD Jackson – piano
Radu ben Judah – bass
Roman Diaz – African percussion
9:30pm
Angelica Sanchez Trio
Angelica Sanchez – piano
Michael Formanek – bass
Hamid Drake – drums
William Mazza – live video art
10:30pm
Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFUNK: WORK in these TIMES Premiere
Fay Victor – voice, composer
Sam Newsome – soprano, toys
Joe Morris – electric guitar
Reggie Nicholson – drums
Special Guest: Eddy Kwon – interdisciplinary artist
10:30pm
Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFUNK: WORK in these TIMES Premiere
Fay Victor – voice, composer
Sam Newsome – soprano, toys
Joe Morris – electric guitar
Reggie Nicholson – drums
Special Guest: Eddy Kwon – interdisciplinary artist
7:30pm
Knife & Rose
Patricia Nicholson – text, movement
Ellen Christi – voice
Jean Carla Rodea – voice
Francisco Mela – drums, voice
Jo Wood-Brown – projected paintings
8:30pm
Watershed
Steve Swell – trombone, composer
Karen Borca – bassoon
Rob Brown – sax
Melanie Dyer – viola
Bob Stewart – tuba
TA Thompson – drums
Special Guest: Dave Burrell – piano
William Mazza – live video art
9:30pm
Monique Ngozi Nri / Ahmed Abdullah
Monique Ngozi Nri – poet
Ahmed Abdullah – trumpet
10pm
Natural Information Society
Joshua Abrams – bass, guembri
Lisa Alvarado – harmonium
Jason Stein – bass clarinet
Mikel Patrick Avery – drums
Special Guest: William Parker – bass, guembri
Special Guest: Hamid Drake – drums
4pm
MiM Vision ENSEMBLE
Directed by William Parker and presented in partnership with Brooklyn Conservatory and Institute for Collaborative Education.
5pm
JD Parran Spirit Stage 2: performs the music of Oliver Lake
JD Parran – tenor sax
Gwendolyn Laster – violin
Kelvyn Bell – guitar
Bill Lowe – bass trombone
Hilliard Greene – bass
Gene Lake – drums
Patricia Nicholson – choreography
Jason Jordan, Miriam Parker, Davalois Fearon – dance
Amir Bey – head dress
6pm
Oliver Lake’s JUSTICE with Sonic Liberation Front
Oliver Lake - composer, arranger, conduction, spoken word
Elliot Levin - tenor sax
Veronica Jurkiewicz - violin
Matt Engle - acoustic bass
Kevin Diehl - drum kit, synth drums
Jameka Gordon - flute
Chaela Harris – voice (alto)
Ravi Seenerine – voice (tenor)
Shanon Chua – voice (soprano)
7:30pm
Lake / Workman / Cyrille
Oliver Lake – poetry
Reggie Workman - bass
Andrew Cyrille – drums
8pm
World Saxophone Quartet
David Murray – tenor, bass clarinet
James Carter – baritone
Greg Osby – tenor sax
Bruce Williams – alto, soprano sax
Celebrating the Lifetime Achievements of Wadada Leo Smith and Oliver Lake. The 26th annual Vision Festival: "A Light in Darkness" will bring together the bright & beautiful voices of top artists of various disciplines—FreeJazz, poetry, visual arts, dance, and more— to share the message of hope and justice with unfettered creativity. Since 1996, the Vision Festival has created and guaranteed a space for improvisation as a leading creative language, and has been named “one of New York’s most essential art events” by The New York Times.
ALL EVENTS:
June 16-27 VISUAL ART SHOW A Light in Darkness at THE LES GALLERY & LA PLAZA at THE CLEMENTE 107 Suffolk Street NYC - Featuring art by Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Wadada Leo Smith & Oliver Lake, as well as Amir Bey, Jeff Schlanger, William Parker & Patricia Nicholson. Opening Night is 6/16 at 5PM. Art will be available for purchase. Inquire with staff. Click VISUAL ART tab above for more info.
June 19-20 VISION FILM SCREENINGS at ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES 32 2nd Avenue, NYC - Featuring "The Lost Generation," "The Black Artists Group: Creation Equals Movement," and "The Sun Rises in the East." Click FILMS tab above for tickets.
June 20 VISION CONFERENCE Legacies of Black Creative Music: A Path Towards Justice at FLAMBOYAN THEATER at THE CLEMENTE 107 Suffolk Street, NYC - FREE TO ATTEND. 3 amazing panels featuring artists, experts & academics. Please click the CONFERENCE tab above to REGISTER!
June 21-25 VISION FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES at ROULETTE 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn - Opening with Lifetime Achievement Award celebration for Wadada on June 21. See full performance schedule by clicking SCHEDULE tab above.
June 26 VISION FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES at LA PLAZA at THE CLEMENTE 114 Norfolk Street, NYC - Lifetime Achievement Award celebration for Oliver. See full performance schedule by clicking SCHEDULE tab above.
VENUES INFO
June 16-27 (Art Show)
THE LES GALLERY & LA PLAZA AT THE CLEMENTE
107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002
See Visual Art tab for programming info
June 19-20 (Films)
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003
See Films tab for programming info & tickets
June 20 (Conference)
Flamboyan Theatre at The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002
See Conference tab for programming info
June 21-25 (Musical Performances)
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
See Schedule tab for programming info & tickets
June 26 (Musical Performances)
La Plaza at the Clemente
114 Norfolk St, Parking Lot, New York, NY 10002
See Schedule tab for programming info
Vision Festival: A Light in Darkness | Film Screenings
Sunday June 19, 2022 & Monday June 20, 2022 - Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003
Anthology Film Archives continues its collaboration with Arts for Art on the occasion of the annual Vision Festival, with two days of film screenings relating to the event. The films will speak to what the Vision Festival represents: Community, Creativity, and Social Justice.
Arts for Art celebrates 26 years of the multi-arts FreeJazz Vision Festival in NYC. The one-week festival, running from June 19 to 26, with live performances starting on June 21, will present global artists ranging from new talents to legendary artists in music, dance, visual art, film, and poetry. Additionally, the festival will include panel discussions on challenges within the art world as well as social responsibilities and justice.
Sunday
June 19, 2022
7pm
William Hooker
THE LOST GENERATION: OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM
2021, 107 min, digital
This film is an effort to elaborate on the history of the many musicians of the 1970s whose music has gone unrecognized by a larger audience. Most of these artists have international followings and continue to perform, record, and document their art and their lives. Some of the musicians, entrepreneurs and listeners featured in the documentary include Michael Thomson, Ken Filiano, Larry Roland, Ras Moshe, Ted Daniel, Dick Griffin, On Davis, Steve Dalachinsky, Craig Harris, Hilliard Greene, Michael Dorf, Richard Berger, William Parker, Sarah Manning, Steve Swell, Newman Baker, Iconoclast, Patricia Parker, Jackson Krall, Andrew Lamb, Marc Edwards, and many more.
Monday
June 20, 2022
7pm
Screening 1 of 2
Bryan Dematteis
THE BLACK ARTISTS’ GROUP: CREATION EQUALS MOVEMENT
2022, 49 min, digital
This documentary delves into the history and legacy of the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), which formed in St. Louis in the late 1960s as an arts collective devoted to raising Black consciousness, battling social injustice, and exploring the far reaches of experimental performance. Growing out of the Black Arts Movement, BAG was distinguished by a unique blending of music, poetry, drama, dance, and the visual arts. Through its interdisciplinary approach, BAG addressed many of the day’s most pressing social issues and brought awareness to the struggles faced by Black city residents. Beyond St. Louis, BAG’s musicians became influential in Europe and in New York, where members helped to found the Loft Jazz scene. Although BAG’s life in St. Louis was brief, several of its number, including Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill, have gone on to impressive careers as experimental jazz players. Locally, the group’s spirit lives on in the many St. Louis musicians who cut their chops learning to play in BAG’s community arts classes. Through rare archival footage and interviews with the collective’s key players, BLACK ARTISTS’ GROUP: CREATION EQUALS MOVEMENT shines a light on this untold St. Louis story of passion, creative vision, and community. Among those featured in the film are Lake, Hemphill, Charles “Bobo” Shaw, Malinke Elliott, Hamiet Bluiett, J.D. Parran, Portia Hunt, Shirley LeFlore, George Sams, Percy Green II, Patricia Cruz, Ben Looker, and Dennis Owsley.
Monday
June 20, 2022
Screening 2 of 2
Tayo Giwa
THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST
2022, 58 min, digital
Produced by Cynthia Gordy Giwa. THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST chronicles the birth, rise, and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Led by educator Jitu Weusi, The East embodied Black self-determination, building its own school, food co-op, newsmagazine, and more than a dozen other institutions. The organization hosted world-famous jazz musicians at its performance venue, and it served as an epicenter for contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. In effect, The East built an independent Black nation in the heart of Central Brooklyn. The film also examines challenges that led to the organization’s dissolution, including government surveillance, its gender politics, and financial struggles. Featuring interviews with leaders of The East and people who grew up in the organization as children, The Sun Rises in The East delivers an exhilarating vision for just how much is possible.
Art Show at The Clemente LES Gallery & La Plaza
107 Suffolk Street, NYC
Art Opening: June 16, at 5pm
Exhibition: June 16 – 27, 2022
ART SHOW IS FREE to attend.
Featuring:
WADADA LEO SMITH, OLIVER LAKE, AMIR BEY, JEFF SCHLANGER, WILLIAM PARKER, PATRICIA NICHOLSON
This year we are partnering with The Clemente to celebrate the Lifetime Achievement of two critical musicians and artists, Wadada Leo Smith and Oliver Lake. The artworks speak collectively. Together they reflect the radical optimism that comes from a lifetime of creativity shared across the globe through art and sound.
Wadada Leo Smith makes a distinction between his Ankhrasmation art scores and other works of art. He considers his art scores to be incomplete if one engages the work only as a visual object. The only true representation of his inspiration as a creative artist occurs when the visual and the auditory are experienced as one phenomenon. When both the exhibition and performance of the scores have been realized, the score as a musical work and as an art object is authenticated. Twelve of Smith’s Ankhrasmation scores will be performed on his Lifetime Achievement night, June 21, at Roulette Intermedium (509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn). The Ankhrasmation symbolic language scores are constructed on cotton paper with ink, acrylic and other sources of hues and systems of reproduction. Smith’s art scores have been exhibited in a number of major museums, such as The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago and The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.
Wadada's art will be available for sale for the duration of the Art Show. Please ask for an info/ pricing pamphlet at the event.
Shown above: Smith's "KOSMIC MUSIC" (2008)
Oliver Lake said, “I pick up the brush as part of my meditation. I work with oil and acrylic paint, pencil, collage - often mixing media. I like to work with vibrant colors exploding against one another. I am a painter, usually on two dimensional surfaces such as paper and canvas, but at times I find myself painting on three dimensional found objects, and these paintings become sculpture. Over the years I have been creating Talkin' Sticks - found natural sticks painted and decorated to tell a story, break a spell, power a dream. The themes in the work come from a long collaboration with my African, Choctaw and American roots, exploring and expressing who I am, and how I see the world. In 2010 I was commissioned by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh to design a house and garden for Sampsonia Way in Pittsburgh, PA. I designed the exterior as a painting, and the interior as a series of paintings and sculptures. There is a painted saxophone that is linked to the doorbell, playing several selections of music upon activation. The house has been completed and has already hosted literary artists by City of Asylum. Though I have received much recognition as a saxophonist, composer and bandleader, I have continued to engage in the merging of artistic disciplines.
Oliver's art will be available for sale for the duration of the Art Show. Please ask for an info/pricing pamphlet at the event. Alternatively, you can purchase Oliver's art from his website at oliverlake.net/art
Shown above: Lake's "Now I'm Breakin' Glass" (2019)
Amir Bey is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work involves both visual, performance arts. As a multidisciplinary artist, he is engaged in mixed media sculpture, carving, silkscreen on fabric, sumi ink paintings and scrolls, art writing, installation, performance art, set design. Lovers in State, one of his Celebrants from his Equinox Celebration Tarot, represents the final state of a relationship between two entities, whether personal or otherwise. It is also a percussive instrument, with high resonance. Amir Bey is also creating four headdresses for Oliver Lake’s composition Africa. Each one was approached differently to be worn by dancers performing on June 26, 2022.
Shown above: Bey's "Lovers in State"
William Parker and Patricia Nicholson began creating spirit totems to celebrate the Vision Festival in 2021. They are continuing to develop these totems in honor of the creative spirit that is both ancient and contemporary. In La Plaza they will design a sacred space with a grove of Totems that is designed to lift minds to spirit and speak to the importance of community, compassion and harmony. William Parker has been making art pieces often involving the instruments that he plays or as scores or illustrations in his books and during the pandemic he made a series of paintings. Patricia Nicholson is best known for her role in AFA and as a dancer. She has expressed her visual art primarily in terms of her performances, designing and making costumes and body paint and set design. The visual component of this year’s Vision Festival is curated by Patricia Nicholson.Jeff Schlanger is a NYC native and ceramic art student of Maija Grotell at Cranbrook creating public art projects on the interrelated subjects Peace, War and Music. His photomural CHILE NEW YORK GAZA 2021 depicts a continuing wall of stoneware ceramic Faces presented in collaboration with photographer J. Maya Luz.
Art Show at Roulette Intermedium
509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn
Exhibition: June 21-26, 2022
VISION FESTIVAL 2022: A LIGHT IN DARKNESS
All of the artists stand together to be a light of creativity and compassion in the oppressive environment of Lies and Intolerance. Crossing disciplines and media, together these works are a statement of Unity and Hope.Featuring:
WADADA LEO SMITH, LOIS EBY, JO WOOD-BROWN, KATY MARTIN, MIRIAM PARKER, LISA ALVARADO, WILLIAM MAZZA, BEATRIZ SAMPAIOSite Installation
ATLAS by Jo Wood Brown
Suspended over the heads of the audience at Roulette, Atlas is an installation based on creating the world we want to see. It represents the push and pull between creative and cosmic forces, between creativity and creation.
Lisa Alvarado is a visual artist and harmonium player in the group Natural Information Society. Since 2010, Alvarado has created mobile stage sets for Natural Information Society with her free-hanging paintings. Alvarado has exhibited her work at the Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Bridget Donahue, New York, The Modern Institute, Glasgow; and currently has work in the Whitney Biennial 2022, Quiet As It's Kept.
William Mazza uses chance, duration, and accumulation to interpret landscape as the relationship of people to mediated environments, through complementary practices of live-painting performance, studio painting, animation, and collaboration. The expressions of this ongoing project are drawings, paintings, animations, and video used to translate moving images, spatial relocation, or text into visual constructions of landscape. Less direct expressions include visual ephemera from durational paintings, or experiential collaborative and/or performative projections as part of improvisational interdisciplinary events.
Jo Wood-Brown is a painter and multimedia artist who has worked in the Vision Festival community for 25 years. Her images move across all forms of two- and three-dimensional media, using painted canvas, photography, and installation to bring together different points of view around a subject. With a painter’s sense of eternal time, her forms detach from familiar notions of figure-ground to allow for the interweaving of historical, environmental, and cultural motifs. Wood-Brown’s work—a kind of living organism adapting and shifting across time, culture and collaboration—supports the role of art in culture and the creative expansion of ideas within and beyond the community.
Katy Martin is a visual artist who paints on her skin as a way of exploring gesture and the mark-making process. She recently had a solo exhibition at the Fergus McCaffrey Gallery in New York. Ms. Martin also shows with Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre in Paris. She has collaborated with the Vision Festival since 2008. Her 2019 video, Underbrush, with music by Matthew Shipp Acoustic Ensemble, grew out of an onstage video projection during a live performance at Vision Festival 2018. Following the concert, Ms. Martin edited that material into a new stand-alone film, where the moving image supports the sound and the music, in turn, opens up the image.
Miriam Parker is creating a new video work in her series, “Black Emergence”, that was first featured at Pioneer Works in 2021. This iteration explores blackness, color, and light. The interplay is the creation of form. How does form emerge? What is needed in order to capture the forming of something, or rather the dissection of creation that emerges through studies of surface’s resistance or supple nature? This piece will be shown as part of an ongoing collaboration with Leo Chang.
Lois Eby
"Rhythm, energy, creative exploration, and at the root of it all: heart, love and compassion for human beings, in their suffering and joy, with deep feeling for the healing possibilities in the music and the art. I work with line, color and space, playing from the heart, always with an eye to create paintings full of life and color, and most of all, full of heart. The collaboration of sound and art is meant to amplify the experience of each."
Residing in Vermont Lois Eby has exhibited in Vermont, New York and Montreal. Her work can be found in a variety of public and private collections.
Beatriz Sampaio
"One day, a friend brought me some paints and canvases and told me I should be painting. It changed my life. Painting has become a necessity. It has no rules, no constraints; it’s complete freedom to express in hundreds of ways what I feel. Some pieces take longer than others, but I have an inner voice that tells me when I have completed the work. However, in my mind, the painting is completed when the people see it and decide for themselves what it is that they see and feel in any individual piece."
Legacies of Black Creative Music – A Path Towards Justice
at The Clemente Flamboyan Theater, 107 Suffolk Street, NYC 10002
June 20, 2022
Starts at 11am Eastern Time
CONFERENCE IS FREE to attend, in-person and streaming
Organized by Patricia Nicholson (Arts for Art Founder, Artistic Director), Carter Mathes (author, Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University), Michael Heller (author, Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh), Kehinde Alonge (PhD candidate in English at Rutgers University), and Danilo Powell-Lima – (Arts for Art Education Development Coordinator)
11am - A Legacy of Self-Determination
Introduction by Michael Heller
An examination of artist-initiated movements
Moderated by Kehinde Alonge
PANELISTS
Ahmed Abdullah, Professor of Jazz at The New School, musician, on Sun Ra
J.D. Parran, musician, composer, on the Black Artists Group of St. Louis
Ras Moshe Burnett, activist, educator, musician, on Brooklyn based initiatives
Patricia Nicholson, Arts for Art Founder, on Manhattan movements beginning in 1975
12:30 pm Lunch Break
1:30pm - Black Music | White Business: The influence of institutions in Jazz/FreeJazz
Introduction by Patricia Nicholson
Moderated by Salim Washington - musician, author, educator
PANELISTS
Jean Cook, Board of Music Workers Alliance, musician, on music and the internet
Gargi Shindé, former Director of Grant Programs, musician, on the role of foundations
Mark Laver, Professor of Music at Grinnell College, on how capitalism and white supremacy are entangled in the exploitation of jazz musicians
Patricia Nicholson, Arts for Art Founder, on resistance to African American FreeJazz in the market
3:30pm - Freedom & Spirituality
Introduction by Carter Mathes
The role of the Church, Spirituality & Freedom, and social justice’s integral role in shaping the music
Moderated by Anthony Jermaine Ross-Allam, PhD candidate in Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary
PANELISTS
Nicole Mitchell, Professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, musician, on afro-futurism and freedom
William Parker, author, educator, activist, and musician, on where the music comes from and how music functions in society
Hamid Drake, musician, on spirituality in life & music
Legacies of Black Creative Music - A Path Towards Justice was supported by a grant from Henry Luce Foundation.
Special Thanks to Rutgers University - New Brunswick and the University of Pittsburgh for their support. Legacies of Black Creative Music - A Path Towards Justice was supported by a grant from Henry Luce Foundation.
Special Thanks to Rutgers University - New Brunswick and the University of Pittsburgh for their support. 
Arts for Art's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Additional support provided by Council Members Margaret Chin and Carlina Rivera, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jacob and Ruth Epstein Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, and The Givens Foundation for African American Literature. This event was made possible in part with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Arts for Art receives support from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Willem de Kooning Foundation, and Teiger Foundation through the Coalition of Small Arts New York. Oliver Lake’s Lifetime Achievement Award is underwritten by the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation. This engagement of William Parker Trio is made possible through the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.