erforming rts enterPAC university at albany State University of New York 2022-23
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PerformingArts Center Music TheatreProgramProgram WELCOME! (518) 442-3995 (518) 442-4187 (518) 442-4200 wwwwwwwww.albany.edu/pac.albany.edu/music.albany.edu/theatre Only 1.5 miles to University at Albany Minutes from I-87, 787, and I-90 Walking Distance to Crossgates Mall All suites hotel - premiere extended stay Deluxe king beds and modern master bathrooms Fully equipped kitchens, Spacious living rooms Complimentary Full Hot Breakfast Indoor Pool and Spa Outside Patio with Fire Pit 24 Hour Fitness Center Cover photo: Urban Bush Women’s “Give Your Hands to Struggle” |
Photo by Ian Douglas Photo Photo by Patrick Ferlo
Visit the UAlbany Performing Arts Center website at www.albany.edu/pac for a full listing of this season’s events. HalzackLaurabyPhoto|CompanyDanceaylorTPaul
Department of Music and Theatre University at Albany presents: Education, Liberation! (or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) A vocal memoir by Kyra D. voice/keyboardGaunt,with friends and other special guests Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 3pm Arena Theatre UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Think about experiencing a place like experiencing a bird. Some people love birds so much that they cage them and keep them in their homes. At first glance, that would seem logical ; they're providing unlimited access to something that they enjoy. But when they cage the birds, they remove everything that they loved about them. Birds aren't intrinsically enjoyable. Birds are enjoyable because they fly, chirp, hop, and reach lands that we never will.
Dedicated to my ancestors Maya Angelou, my great great grandparents who were freedom seekers on the UGRR in 1855, the DuBoises, Paul Robeson, and the best friend a woman can have: listening to her own voice And today’s my birthday!! ~ Kyra Gaunt
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~ Cody LaCrosse, “The Cracks” (2019) ii. alchemy of race & rights / “the silver aria,” the ballad of baby doe featuring duncan cumming on keyboard iii. jokin' across cultures / “i love you”
Program
iv. professin’ hip-hop / “check 1, get 2 the floor…” “eeny meeny pepsadeeny” (game-song) / “goin up north”
v. write to hate / “everything must change” (benard ighner) vi. teaching love / “lord, how come me here” (arr. spiritual) ode / “brotherman” (original song; samples Alvin Lee + Ten Years After) dedicated to my dad; photography by parris whittingham (2007) what we carry…to work / a transactional talkback re-membering my voice / song to be announced x. finale / “black can be me” (poem + original song) featuring tarik shah on bass “she comprehended the perversity of life, that in the stuggle lies the joy.” ~ Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)
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i. a vocal memoir / “black can be me” (original song) black birds + singing slaves + “no mo’ auction block for me” (arr. spiritual)
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In his book TEAM HUMAN, friend and cyberculture thinker Douglas Rushkoff described how tech has been “paralyzing our ability to connect meaningfully, and act constructively. … Being human is a team sport. We cannot be fully human alone.” While this vocal memoir is let us set aside our cell phones — “the honor of our presence is requested.”
Moving to New York City in 2000 fulfilled a childhood aspiration to performing jazz in the Big Apple. In the first year of her move, she met former collaborator and guitarist Tomás Doncker. Together they composed original R&B/blues-based Kyra’s poetry including a poem that outlined her dissertation, which morphed into the song “Black Can Be Me” dedicated to the journey to meeting her father at the age of 40. The dissertation become the prize-winning book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to HipHop (2006). With Doncker, she composed and self-produced a solo album “Be the True Revolution” (2007) – featuring Swiss American jazz harmonica phenom Gregoire Maret. The album was premiered at Joe’s Pub and featured at The Nuyorican Poets Café and Cornelia Street Café in Manhattan. Her acclaimed first book, funded by fellowships from the NEH and the Ford Foundation and published by NYU Press, won the 2007 Alan Merriam Prize for the most outstanding English speaking book from
Kyra Gaunt is not new to performance or improvisation. She has appeared on stage and in jam sessions with an eclectic array of jazz artists including the phenomenal Bobby McFerrin, Bob James, Graham Haynes, imani uzuri, Curtis Lundy, Tarik Shah, in addition to our own free-thinking jazz composer-pianist retired professor emeritus Bob Gluck with his fellow collaborators Tani Tabbal (drums) and Christopher Dean Sullivan (bass).
Behind the Voice & the Memoir
For a little over an hour listen in to UAlbany Prof. Kyra Gaunt’s “vocal memoir.” She has been voicing the unspoken through song, scholarship, and social media. As a singer-songwriter and poet Kyra Danielle Gaunt curated an evening of songs and stories to create a community and connection around a monologue of pivotal moments that dot her academic career teaching ethnomusicology at UVA, NYU, CUNY, and now SUNY.
Kyra is a proud alumna of The University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater, and Dance; SUNY Binghamton; The American University; as well as her humble beginnings at a community college in Rockville, Maryland. While she actually dreamt of being like Chaka Khan or Minnie Riperton, all her degees are in classical voice, except her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. Her twelve years of vocal study and performance in art songs and opera in multiple languages included two years under the guidance of renowned operatic tenor George Shirley. Her jazz mentors include saxophonist Patience Higgins, pianist Onaje Allan Gumbs, and the legendary pianist/jazz pedagog Barry Harris. The latter two have joined the ancestors. Rest in power. Beyond song and scholarship, one of her most cherished accolades was joining the TED community as a member of its inaugural class of 40 world changing TED Fellows in 2009, who often collaborate around local and global issues. She is part of the team of TED Fellows that supported the #MeToo movement and feminism by leading a public art performance project known as BRICKx BRICK.org: “We are
Using her gift of vocables and vocal improvisation she performed on the choreographic stage in a three-year collaboration with dancer/choreographer Preeti Vasudevan in a work based on the Indian saga of Savitri and Satyavan. They workshopped the piece at several venues in NYC. In 2017, her first book about Black girls’ musical play inspired the award-winning choreographer and director Camille A. Brown to choreograph and premiere BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play with her company Camille A. Brown & Dancers company at the Joyce Theater and Jacob’s Pillow. Kyra served as a consultant for the production. Then Camille drew from Gaunt’s book again when she choreographed and directed her seven time Tonynominated Broadway production of For Colored Girls by Ntozake Shange in the summer of 2022. She is currently writing a manuscript that explores how music and technology exploit, groom, and orchestrate sexual and gender-based violence against young Black girls online in ways that benefit everyone but the girl on the musical Internet. This project is funded by a $25,000 grant from the Ms. Foundation’s Girls of Color Fund (2021-23).
the Society of Ethnomusicology, which contributed to the emergence of hip-hop studies, black girlhood studies, and hip-hop feminism.
Kyra’s been featured in two notable TED videos: "How the Jump Rope Got Its Rhythm" with over 7.1 million views and “How Black Girls Can Reclaim their Voice in Music,” released in July 2022. The second video received nearly 1M views in just over two months. Please support Kyra’s independently produced original CD “Be the True Revolution”. Its title was inspired by the poem “When I Die” by Nikki…andGiovanni.ifever
Coming Up Next from the Music Program
Monday, October 3 at 7:30pm
i touched a life I hope that life knows that I know that touching was and still is and will always be the Herrevolution.truealbumBe the True Revolution is available for download on iTunes, Amazon, Apple Music, and CDBaby. Avoid Spotify plays as they don’t pay artists well. Also, her songs and TED talks are searchable on YouTube. Check out her viral sensation How the Jump Rope Got Its Rhythm (7M views) and her July 2022 release How Black Girls Can Reclaim Their Voice (almost 1M views in two months.
building silent human walls against misogyny.” Silence can speak volumes in non-violent mass action.Photocredit:
artist image by Camille Seaman ©2016
A Shubert Triology
Eminent pianist Kwok Wai Lio presents a recital of Schubert’s final three sonatas for solo piano.
The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.
HOUSE POLICIES
The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.
erforming rts enterPAC university at albany State University of New York
Created and produced by the University Art Museum, NYS Writers Institute and UAlbany Performing Arts Center in collaboration with WAMC Public Radio, this popular series features leading figures from a variety of artistic disciplines in conversation about their creative inspirations, their craft and their careers. “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue conducts live on-stage interviews followed by a Q&A with the audience.
Have your next event here... (518) 442-3995 www.albany.edu/pacPAC@albany.edu
Latecomers will be seated at the discretion of the management and its staff. The use of photographic or recording devices of any kind during this performance is strictly Thereprohibited.isno food or drink allowed in the theatres, nor is smoking allowed in UAlbany T.buildings.oavoiddisrupting the performance, kindly disable any noise making electronic devices you may have with you. Please take time to note the location of the fire exits nearest to you. In the event of an emergency, an announcement will be made from the stage. Please proceed to the nearest exit in an orderly fashion.
Urban Bush Women UAlbany Performing Arts Center September 20 & 21at 7:30pm MOMIX The Egg October 6 at 7:30pm Limón Dance Company The Egg October 21 at 8pm La Serpiente UAlbany Performing Arts Center November 13 at 7:30pm ODC/Dance UAlbany Performing Arts Center January 27 at 7:30pm NY Theatre Ballet & Bridgman|Packer Dance The Egg February 17 at 8pm Paul Taylor Dance Company The Egg March 4 at 8pm Dublin Irish Dance The Egg March 18 at 7:30pm SaViON GLOVeR & The CeLeBRaTeD ORCHeST’DaNCE RA The Egg April 22 at 8pm Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company The Egg May 13 at 8pm Pick any six and save 25% or choose four for savings of 10% Photo: Samantha Speis of Urban Bush Women, photo by Ian Douglas Buy all ten for only $130! Packages available through The Egg Box Office (518) 473-1845 theegg.org Dance Albanyin 2022-23
Troy, Albany, Schenectady and SaratogaSprings,NY The UAlbany Performing Arts Center is no longer operating a box office. All ticketing is done on-line and can be easily navigated from the web site provided through the QR code above or address below. www.albany.edu/pac
