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6 PM: Cash bar
7 PM: Performance
8:30 PM: Reception and book signing
9:30 PM: Event/galleries close
Following sold out engagements at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center, jazz pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran and Mezzo-soprano and composer Alicia Hall Moran create a special rendition of their acclaimed “Two Wings” performance for the Mississippi Museum of Art. Drawing upon their own family lore and stories, both harrowing and inspiring, of the Great Migration, they weave together music from rhythm and blues to gospel, classical to Broadway, work songs to rock, and more.
In this performance, words and music come together to tell the Great Migration story from the book Midnight Without a Moon, set in the Mississippi summer of 1955. Acclaimed Mississippi author Linda Williams Jackson joins the performers on stage. Thoughtfully arranged for the Mississippi Museum of Art, this performance shares a story of two accounts – those who decided to leave the South, and those who decided to stay – shining a light on the how the complexity of the movement impacted the people, and music, of America. Image by Fadi Kheir/Carnegie Hall
A reception and book signing will follow the performance.
Midnight Without a Moon, one of Jackson’s many acclaimed novels, is a novel told through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Rose Lee Carter during the Mississippi summer of 1955. In the story, Rose’s parents decide to leave Mississippi in search of economic prosperity in Chicago, while Rose, who is under the care of her grandparents on a cotton plantation, finds herself increasingly eager to move north in their footsteps. Rose realizes that the South needs to change, and that she should be a part of the movement.
Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration
Jason Moran (co-producer and piano) is Artistic Director for Jazz at the Kennedy Center. Moran has recorded 16 solo albums, the most recent being The Sound Will Tell You. Within jazz, his multimedia tributes to Thelonious Monk, Fats Waller, and James Reese Europe shifted the jazz paradigm, combining striking visuals, music, and history into masterful evening-length works. Moran was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010. He co-owns Yes Records with his wife, singer and composer Alicia Hall Moran. Moran scored Ava Duvernay’s films Selma and The 13th and the HBO film adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. He is also a visual artist with paintings in the permanent collections of SFMOMA, MoMA, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Moran currently teaches at the New England Conservatory.
Alicia Hall Moran (co-producer and mezzo-soprano). Moran’s multi-dimensional performances
cruise across the lines of Opera (singing the title role of Chantal, which she co-composed with Jason Moran last
season for Washington National Opera); Recital (most recently in duo concert with pianist Aaron Diehl for curator
Carl Hancock Rux at Park Avenue Armory), on Broadway, where she most notably debuted in the Tony Award-winning revival Porgy and Bess, rising to star as ‘Bess’ on the 21-city national tour; Symphony concerts and recordings (next as soloist in Gabriel Kahane’s contemporary oratorio emergency shelter intake form with San Francisco symphony, and Composition with two critically-acclaimed albums of her own for YES Records: Heavy Blue and Here Today). Upcoming collaborations include vocals for saxophonist Yosvany Terry, a new chapter of musical ice works with Lyric Opera of the Northand Ice Theatre of New York, and a brand new production of her ongoing signature mash-up of Motown and Opera (since 2009), the motown project, in 2023. Ms. Moran would like to thank all the collaborators on this very special edition of Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration for their outstanding commitment to the beauty of Black Music in all its many forms.
Linda Williams Jackson (narrator) is the author of Midnight Without a Moon, which was an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, a Jane Addams Honor Book for Peace and Social Justice, and a Washington Post Summer Book Club Selection. Her second book, A Sky Full of Stars, received the Malka Penn Honor for an outstanding children’s book addressing human rights issues and was a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year. Her third book, The Lucky Ones, was inspired by Robert Kennedy’s 1967 Poverty Tour of the Mississippi Delta and is loosely based on her own family’s experiences in the Delta. Born and raised in Rosedale, Mississippi, Linda Williams Jackson lives in Southaven, Mississippi, with her family.
Rico McFarland (guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter). Rico McFarland has performed and recorded with all the blues genre’s greatest legends. His innovative musical voice incorporates contemporary music yet preserves traditional blues style. McFarland’s collaborations, performances, and recording sessions include work with Little Milton, James Cotton, Al Green, Big Time Sarah, Lucky Peterson, Jimmy Johnson, Carl Weathersby, and David Sanborn. A native of Chicago, he grew up in a musical household (his father James also was a bandleader). McFarland’s first instrument was the drums, and among others, he counted as local heroes Otis Rush and Hubert Sumlin. After decades performing as a sought-after session guitarist and sideman, he released an acclaimed solo album, Tired Of Being Alone, on Evidence Music. As an educator, McFarland continues to work with the Blues Foundation’s Blues in the Schools program. He recently was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
Imani Winds. Celebrating 25 years of music making, the twice Grammy nominated Imani Winds has led both a revolution and the evolution of the wind quintet through their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations, and outreach endeavors. They regularly perform for prominent chamber music series and concert venues across the US. They have toured in Asia, Brazil, Australia, England, New Zealand and across Europe. In 2016, they received a permanent presence in the classical music section of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. Imani Winds’ latest album, Bruits, was nominated for a 2022 GRAMMY award, in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category.
Tia Allen (viola) has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, Metropolitan Museum, Royal Opera House of Muscat, and the Teatro Nacional in Santo Domingo. As a freelance artist in New York City she has performed with Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, The Eagles, Anderson Paak, Miley Cyrus, Cynthia Erivo, DuaLipa, Michael Bolton, Frank Ocean, and Bebe Winans, to name a few. She held the viola chair on Broadway’s Jagged Little Pill. Other Broadway performances include My Fair Lady, Spongebob Squarepants, An American in Paris, and On the Town. She enjoyed many televised performances and appeared in Bruce Springsteen’s Tucson Train and Western Stars videos. A past fellowship member of Spoleto Festival in Charleston, she is also the founder, director, and violist of Diverse Concert Artists. She most recently made history as the first black woman to music coordinate/contract for a show on Broadway at For Colored Girls.
Thomas Fllippin (guitar) is an original and versatile voice in the world of contemporary music: premiering new works with his pioneering classical guitar ensemble, Duo Noire; performing avant-garde theorbo as part of Alicia Hall Moran’s Motown Project; playing otherworldly electric guitar in Heartbeat Opera’s The Extinctionist; and plucking the banjo in the American Repertory Theater’s The Black Clown. Flippin’s playing has been hailed as “profoundly enjoyable” and “spectacularly precise” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Concert highlights include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, The Metropolitan Museum, & The Guitar Foundation of America Convention. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Music.
Allison Loggins-Hull (flute) is a flutist, composer, and producer whose work defies classification. She creates music resonant with social and political themes of the current moment, encompassing motherhood, Blackness, and cultural identity, expressed via independent endeavors, community engagement, and artistic collaborations with the likes of Imani Winds, Lizzo, LA Phil, Hans Zimmer, Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran. In 2022-23, Loggins-Hull begins a three-year tenure as the Lewis Composer Fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra. Ever the prolific creator, new works by Loggins-Hull will be premiered by yMusic, Alisa Weilerstein, Alarm Will Sound, Third Coast Percussion, Flutronix, ETHEL, and Cygnus Ensemble–all in the span of this single season. Born in Chicago and with roots in Mississippi, Loggins-Hull currently lives in Montclair with her family.
Marvin Sewell (guitar) is a New York-based blues and jazz guitarist born and raised in Chicago, where he attended the Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University. He has played and recorded with leading jazz artists, notably Cassandra Wilson, Jack DeJohnette, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Christian Sands, Charles Lloyd, Brianna Thomas and Lizz Wright. He leads the Marvin Sewell Group and co-leads a group called MILK.
NaTasha Yvette Williams (vocals) Broadway credits include Tina, The Tina Turner Musical (Zelma), Chicken and Biscuits (Brianna), Waitress (Becky), Chicago (Mama Morton), A Night With Janis Joplin (Aretha, Joplinaire), The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (Mariah), The Color Purple (Sofia), and BELLA by Kirsten Childs. Williams’ Television and Film roles include Harlem (Rebecca), FBI ( Mrs. Adamu), New Amsterdam (Esther), and The Good Fight, as well as the historical thriller Alice (Ruth), Disney’s Better Nate than Never (Principal), Partner Track (Nella) on Netflix, and season 2 of Run The World (Grace).