American Routes – ArtPower

Phil Cook | All These Years

“Phil Cook is a lightning bolt. He is a teacher and captor of music. He carries it within him at all times. No one has taught me more about music in my life than him. He is one of the great performers of our age … as time passes more and more people will find that out. I’m excited every time someone gets to discover Phil’s genius—a thing I’ve had the good fortune of knowing all my life.”—Justin Vernon, Bon Iver

For Phil Cook, it all started with piano. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, solo artist, and in-demand musician whose collaborations have run the gamut of genre — as a founding member of beloved band Megafaun to work with The Blind Boys of Alabama, Bon Iver, Kanye West, and Hiss Golden Messenger, to name a few—Cook has always been a musician’s musician. A sweet and affable presence whose musical dexterity elevates every project he touches, Cook’s musical output and true sound has been hard to pin down. But even across all the work he’s done in his decades as a musician, he’s yet to release a proper piano album. In that way, “All These Years” is sort of the first proper introduction to Cook, to the way he can express himself with the most ease and reveal the deepest compartments of his heart.

All These Years is Cook’s first solo instrumental album on his primary instrument, recorded at NorthStar Church of the Arts in Durham, NC by his cousin and collaborator Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Indigo Girls). Cook and Joseph have been close their entire lives, with Joseph being one of the people who knows the full depth of Cook’s relationship to the instrument.

Harlem Gospel Travelers

The Harlem Gospel Travelers are not from Harlem. They came to Harlem, however, from far-flung corners of the five boroughs of New York City, and it was in Harlem, that legendary center of African-American culture, that they found their voices. Since its conception, they have focused on creating music that uplifts, inspires, and spreads the message of love.

AJ Lee & Blue Summit

AJ Lee & Blue Summit are an award-winning energetic, charming, and technically jaw-dropping band quickly rising on the national roots music scene. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the group met as teenagers, picking and jamming together as kids at local music festivals and jams until one day, they decided they would be a band. They bring their latest album, City of Glass, to ArtPower.

Aoife O’Donovan | America, Come

With La Jolla Symphony & Chorus and San Diego Children’s Choir

“O’Donovan is in a league all her own—her harmonic and rhythmic inventions make for post-folk ear candy.”—Nashville Scene

“There’s a…march to the blossoming of her catalog and her artistry and it’s on full display on All My Friends.”—The Bluegrass Situation

“vocalist of unerring instinct”—New York Times

Multi-GRAMMY winner Aoife O’Donovan will perform songs from her new album All My Friends, a poignant celebration of democracy and womanhood. The album’s nine tracks are deeply inspired by the passage of the 19th Amendment and the evolving fight for women’s rights in America over the last century.

Co-curated by La Jolla Symphony and Chorus Artistic Director Sameer Patel, the concert will also honor the trailblazing voices of Florence Price and Ethel Smyth. Their powerful compositions echo through time, a testament to the strength and brilliance of women in classical music. The program will include Price’s “Calvary” from Five Folksongs and Smyth’s March of the Women. The evening concludes with “America, Come” from Aoife O’Donovan’s Age of Apathy album. The song cycle—inspired by the lives and letters of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in a musical exploration of voting rights for women during the 1920’s—is an unforgettable musical tapestry about the women heroes.

This concert is a stirring tribute to history, activism, and the power of music. Don’t miss it!

Leyla McCalla with Yasmin Williams

Born in New York City to Haitian emigrants and activists, Leyla McCalla finds inspiration from her past and present—her music vibrates with three centuries of history and influences from around the globe. McCalla possesses a stunning mastery of the cello, tenor banjo and guitar and, as a multilingual singer and songwriter, has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. In addition to her solo work, McCalla is a founding member of Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell) and alumna of Grammy award-winning Black string band The Carolina Chocolate Drops.

McCalla returns to ArtPower with acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and film composer Yasmin Williams. She has an unorthodox, modern style of guitar playing and utilizes various techniques including alternate tunings, percussive hits, and lap tapping in her music to great effect. Her “radiant sound and adventitious origins have made her a key figure in a diverse dawn for the solo guitar” (The New York Times). Williams’s music has been described as rich, harmonious, and “in a lot of ways, the joy and possibility she brings to the guitar reminds me more of Eddie Van Halen than any of the other fingerstyle guitarists to whom she’s compared” (NPR Music).

Jake Blount

5:30 pm: ArtTalk with Jake Blount: “Inherited Black Futures Shaping Tomorrow Through Ancestral Craft”

A powerfully gifted musician and a scholar of Black American music, Jake Blount speaks ardently about the African roots of the banjo and the subtle, yet profound ways African Americans have shaped and defined the amorphous categories of roots music and Americana. His 2020 album Spider Tales (named one of the year’s best albums by NPR and the New Yorker, earned a perfect 5-star review from the Guardian) highlighted the Black and Indigenous histories of popular American folk tunes, as well as revived songs unjustly forgotten in the whitewashing of the canon. Blount’s new album, The New Faith, is a towering achievement of dystopian Afrofuturism and his first album for Smithsonian Folkways (released September 23, 2022). The New Faith is spiritual music, filled with hope for salvation and righteous anger in equal measure. The album manifests our worst fears on the shores of an island in Maine, where Blount enacts an imagined religious ceremony performed by Black refugees after the collapse of global civilization due to catastrophic climate change. Blount’s music is rooted in care and confrontation. On stage, each song he and his band play is chosen for a reason—because it highlights important elements about the stories we tell ourselves of our shared history and our endlessly complicated present moment. The more we learn about where we’ve been, the better equipped we are to face the future.

This is Jake Blount’s San Diego premiere.

Carlos Simon | Requiem for the Enslaved

Multi-genre work Requiem for the Enslaved by Carlos Simon is a musical tribute to commemorate the stories of 272 enslaved men, women and children sold in 1838 by Georgetown University, infusing original compositions with African American spirituals and familiar Catholic liturgical melodies. Performed by the Hub New Music with Carlos at the piano, Requiem features spoken word and hip hop artist Marco Pavé, and trumpeter MK Zulu.

Requiem for the Enslaved was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

Carlos Simon

Grammy-nominated Carlos Simon is a multi-genre composer and performer who is a passionate advocate for diversity in music. As winner of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence 2021 and Composer-in-Residence at the Kennedy Center, Carlos is a unique voice and sought-after cultural ambassador for new music Globally as well as an important spokesperson for the Black community and new audiences.

Simon is passionate about social outreach and his work addresses complex themes that include migration, belonging and community – especially illuminating the transatlantic slave trade, the Jim and Jane Crow era, and the injustice people of African ancestry face today. His unique upbringing and journey into music has resulted in his music possessing both classical textures and structures in a contemporary aesthetic alongside strong jazz, hip-hop and heavy gospel influences as well as branching out in to the world of Film – Carlos Simon’s music transcends genre.

Listed in the Kennedy Center’s Next 50’, his recent commissions have been granted by the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Kennedy Center, Minnesota Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, PBS and the Washington National Opera as well as his work being set to ballets by Washington National Ballet and American Ballet Theater. He is signed to Decca Records/Classics and his next album (following his Grammy-nominated release) which sees original music and a variety of celebrated guest artists with Carlos at the piano, will be out in 2023.

Hub New Music

Called “contemporary chamber trailblazers” by the Boston Globe, Hub New Music is a “nimble quartet of winds and strings” (NPR) forging new paths in 21st-century repertoire. The ensemble’s ambitious commissioning projects and “appealing programs” (New Yorker) celebrate the rich diversity of today’s classical music landscape. Founded in 2013, Hub has grown into a formidable touring ensemble driven by an unwavering dedication to building community through new art. Over the last decade, Hub has commissioned dozens of new works and continues to usher in a fresh and culturally relevant body of work for its distinct combination of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. Hub is proud to collaborate with today’s most celebrated emerging and established composers, and is equally proud to count many of them as friends.

Marco Pavé

Tauheed “Marco Pavé” Rahim IIis a Memphis, TN, native and hip hop artist, advocate, and educator producing work influenced by Memphis’s legacy of blues, soul, and trap with KRS-One-meets-Project-Pat sensibilities. Marco Pavé has collaborated with Grammy Award-winning producers, charted at #2 on CMJ, and was featured on MTVU, The Source, The Root, MTV News, and more. Marco Pavé is also a Memphis Music Ambassador with Music Export Memphis and Founder of Radio Rahim Music, an independent record label that works at the intersection of hip hop, arts communities, technology, and activism.

MK Zulu

Jared “MK Zulu” Bailey is a Grammy-nominated trumpeter/rapper/singer/songwriter from Forestville, Maryland. Graduating from Howard with a Bachelor’s in Music Business, he later received his Master’s in Jazz Performance from Rutgers. Since then, MK has been working as a teaching and performing artist in the DMV through various outlets. MK Zulu has had the opportunity to perform at some of the city’s most prominent venues including The Atlas Performing Arts Center, The Howard Theatre, and the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center. Thriving in collaboration, he participated in over 25 releases as a contributing performer. MK’s collaboration with composer Carlos Simon for his album, “Requiem for the Enslaved”, was Grammy nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Meanwhile, his latest solo project “The Legend EP” is an energetic package of songs created to motivate others to never give up on their dreams. This project led to MK being listed among The Source Magazine’s Top Talents to Watch Fall 2021. MK Zulu’s effortless fusion of jazz, hip-hop, r&b, and funk allows him to connect with listeners from all different walks of life.

John Rawlins III

John (He/Him/His) is a Campus Diversity Officer and Director of the UC San Diego Black Resource Center. He is an EDI/Student Affairs professional with 16 years of experience as an administrator and advocate for students, more specifically students of color. John is a native of the Washington, DC Metropolitan area and earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and his Master of Arts degree from The Johns Hopkins University. John comes to UCSD from California State University San Marcos where he served as Director of the Black Student Center and Special Assistant to the Chief Diversity Officer in the Office of Inclusive Excellence. John’s passion to support students of color began during his undergraduate career, where he served in many leadership roles in student organizations and campus advisory boards. John would begin a celebrated career at Ithaca College, continue at The Johns Hopkins University, and the international headquarters of his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., before heading West to CSUSM. John holds memberships with NASPA, ASCAP, and is a Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He serves as the 16th and current President/CEO of the Cornell Black Alumni Association and serves on several alumni boards for the institution. John is also a Gospel recording artists and vocalist who has performed on national and international stages alike. He has been honored to share the stage and sing with artists such as jazz icon Wynton Marsalis and Gospel legend Kirk Franklin.

Madison McFerrin

Opening Set by Professor King Britt (DJ Set)

Throughout her fruitful independent career, spanning three EPs and multiple collaborations, Madison McFerrin has earned accolades from the New York Times, NPR, The FADER, and Pitchfork—who named her a Rising Artist in 2018. Her genre-bending work has led to Questlove dubbing her early sound “soul-appella.” In addition to a stirring performance on the renowned COLORS Studio platform, McFerrin has also performed at Lincoln Center, Central Park SummerStage, and BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn, and shared stages with the likes of De La Soul, Gallant, and The Roots. Off the stage, Madison’s music has been featured in episodes of Comedy Central’s Broad City and HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness. Working at the intersection of artistry and community building, McFerrin co-curated programming for the BRIC Jazz Festival in 2021, and in 2022, aligned her MAD LOVE initiative with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy to present three installments of Summer Fridays—a series focused on themes of RELEASE, RESTORE & REJOICE with DJs, comedians, and musicians providing some much needed space for healing from the collective trauma and grief of the pandemic. Most recently, McFerrin has performed at the Saint Joseph’s Art Society in San Francisco and Joe’s Pub in New York City to support fundraisers benefiting the National Network of Abortion Funds.

Dirk Powell Band

Dirk Powell is a musician whose emotional understanding of American tradition has enabled him to expand on roots extending back more than nine generations in the southern mountains. His new group is a hard-driving, exciting testament to the power of the living old-time music tradition. Powell’s ability to unite traditional and historical forms with modern sensibilities has led to work with many of today’s greatest artists, from Sting to Jewel to Loretta Lynn to Joan Baez.

Steve Riley and Racines

The late Dewey Balfa once said “A culture is like a tree, you have to water the roots, but you can’t go cutting off the branches every time the tree tries to grow”. Well, Racines (which means “roots” in French) both waters the roots and stretches outward. A collaborative project of five gentlemen who are all well-known Cajun musicians in their own right, Racines explores the varying musical traditions that call Southwest Louisiana home: Cajun music, Zydeco, blues, and more.