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Ben Barson and Brassroots Democracy: A Panel Discussion on Music and the MovementsFriday, March 14, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
FREE!
Join Ben Barson in conversation with Davu Seru, Yolanda Williams, Shekela Wanyama and Brass Solidarity for a conversation about music, culture and movements. Much like how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction, the tuneful art has been woven into grassroots social movements throughout the twentieth century, with implications for American culture writ large.
Benjamin Barson is a composer, historian, and musicologist. He is an assistant professor of music at Bucknell University. His research thinks through jazz as an Afro-Atlantic art form deeply tied to the counter-plantation legacies of the Haitian Revolution and their echoes in Radical Reconstruction. He received his PhD in Music from the University of Pittsburgh and recently completed a Fulbright Garcia-Robles postdoctoral fellowship at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Mexicali, Mexico.
His work Mirror Butterfly: The Migrant Liberation Movement Suite (2018) was hailed as “Fully orchestrated and magnificently realized” (The Vermont Standard) as well as “a call to action” (I Care if You Listen). His teaching encourages students to consider musical aesthetics and their associated production practices through a holistic, interdisciplinary approach rooted in methodologies developed by scholars in Africana studies, musicology, cultural studies, and Atlantic History from below.
Davu Seru is the Curator of the Givens Collection of African American Literature at University of Minnesota. He is an improvising musician, composer and scholar known primarily for his work on drums. For the past 20+ years he has worked with musicians such as Milo Fine, George Cartwright, Nirmala Rajasekar, Douglas R. Ewart, Michelle Kinney, Dean Magraw, Paul Metzger, Evan Parker, Didier Petit, Babatunde Lea, Nathan Hanson, Mankwe Ndosi, Rafael Toral, David Boykin, Donald Washington, Guillame Seguron, Tony Hymas, David Boykin, Chris Bates, Catherine Delaunay, and Nicole Mitchell Gantt. Davu is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Rev. Yolanda Y. Williams, Ph.D., is a performer, educator, scholar, and pastor. Yolanda performed soprano and mezzo-soprano repertoire with Vocalessence, the Rochester Symphony, La Choeur Symphonique de Fribourg, Lundi Sept Heures, Ensemble de Cuivres Jurassien, the Montreux Symphony, and the Israel Philharmonic. Her worldwide performances have been of music from the Classical, Jazz, Blues, and Gospel genres. Dr. Williams teaches music as a cultural artifact through the African American/African Studies department at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Shekela Wanyama (she/her/hers) builds community through crafting innovative and meaningful choral experiences. She is passionate about building a 21st century practice of art music that is inclusive, engaging, honest, and brave. A freelance conductor-educator based in Minneapolis, Dr. Wanyama serves on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, Hamline University, and the music staff at Unity Church-Unitarian. Dr. Wanyama holds a DMA in conducting from the University of Minnesota, an MM in choral conducting from Temple University, a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Minnesota, and is a proud graduate of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
This event is generously sponsored by the African American and African Studies Department at the University of Minnesota.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, United States, Minnesota 55106
