sparksLIVE NYC 2023
We were thrilled to present the 2023 sparksLIVE events in January, including the World Premiere of Songs In Flight at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Featured Artists Included Rhiannon Giddens, Shawn Okpebholo, Karen Slack, Reginald Mobley, Will Liverman, and Howard Watkins, and also included the 7th Annual songSLAM at DiMenna Center for the Arts.
SONGS IN FLIGHT
The cornerstone event of the 2023 sparksLIVE events was the world premiere of Shawn Okpebholo’s new 55-minute song cycle Songs in Flight on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium as part of the MetLiveArts series.
Conceived and commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries, the new song cycle featured singer and multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens, soprano Karen Slack, countertenor Reginald Mobley, baritone Will Liverman, and pianist Howard Watkins. The work sets texts curated by Dr. Tsitsi Ella Jaji (Duke University), whose own work, along with the work of poet Crystal Simone Smith (Duke University), and Pulitzer Prize winner Tyehimba Jess contextualizes and responds to selected primary source materials from Freedom on the Move (FOTM). The FOTM database, started in 2019 at Cornell University, consists of more than 30,000 “runaway ads” placed during the period of slavery and acts as written records of fugitive enslaved people. Songs in Flight was presented by Sparks in partnership with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Click the button above to read more about Songs In Flight, as well as companion articles and performance dates.
songSLAM COMPETITION
Sparks hosted its 7th annual songSLAM on Friday, January 13, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at the DiMenna Center for the Arts. Fashioned after poetry slams and storytelling events, teams of composers and performers compete for $2,000 audience-awarded cash prizes with new art song premieres. Additionally, last year's songSLAM commission prize winner Shawn Chang premiered his new cycle 'Us Now' during the event performed by tenor Daniel McGrew with the composer at the piano.
COMPETITION RESULTS:
Live audience voting awarded first place to Team 1, second place to Team 11, and third place to Team 14.
Most votes in the virtual SLAM went to Team 8, followed by Team 12, and Team 14 in third place.
Most money raised by each team, went to Team 12, followed by Team 1, with Team 11 in third place.
The 2023 songSLAM commission prize was awarded to composer Laura Nevitt, selected by a panel including Lydia Brown, Reginald Mobley, and Lucy Shelton.
Click the button above to watch the competing submissions, as well as Shawn Chang’s new cycle ‘Us Now.’