Award-winning composer and musician Tamar-kali joins forces with opera and theatre director James Blaszko and the American Composers Orchestra to bring Freedom Is a Constant Struggle to Lincoln Center. A second-generation musician with roots in the coastal Sea Islands of South Carolina, Tamar-kali has designed an evening of orchestral performances and readings that highlight the African-American struggle to reap the benefits of liberty and justice defined as a part of American citizenry. The concert traces the African-American struggle to achieve freedom—from the call to abolish chattel slavery through the Civil War, from reconstruction and the early movement for racial equality to the ‘60s civil rights movement, all the way to our present-day fights for equity. The performance includes the world premiere of Tamar-kali’s Sea Island Symphony: Red Rice, Cotton and Indigo, and spotlights pivotal works by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, and Ida B. Wells, among other notable works. Featuring an orchestra, choir, guest vocalists, orators, and ring shouters, this will be an unforgettable, not-to-be missed evening of innovation, experimentation, and introspection.
The performance features American Composers Orchestra conducted by Glenn Alexander II, The Resistance Revival Chorus, Members of the Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers, Carl Hancock Rux, Toshi Reagon, Taiwan Norris, Darren K. Stokes, Portia, Samuel Getachew, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Martha Redbone & Aaron Whitby, and Liza Jessie Peterson
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