Meet The Composer has announced its NAACP Centennial Commissioning Project, which will result in world-premiere performances at the NAACP Centennial Convention in New York City this summer. The project is a joint effort of Meet The Composer and Dr. Rae Alexander-Minter, an educator and arts activist. One piece will be a musical setting by Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., of a poem by U.S. poet laureate Elizabeth Alexander, who read her own “Praise Song for the Day” at President Obama’s inauguration; there will also be a live remix of music, voices, and imagery by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), based on “Go Down Moses.” Ramsey, author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (2003), is a professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania. The works will be performed at the opening session of the NAACP’s Centennial Convention, on July 12 at the Hilton Hotel Ballroom in New York City. Scheduled speakers at the convention, which celebrates the NAACP’s 100th anniversary, include Princeton professor Cornel West, Attorney General Eric Holder, and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond. Meet The Composer supports the creation of new musical work and the engagement of new work with people and communities throughout the United States.
Posted June 26, 2009
