Black on Screen: An Ode to Mary Lou Williams

Join us for Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture as we continue our theme “100 Years of Black Music on Camera.” From Jazz, to Funk, to Hip-Hop, this season celebrates the sonic archive of Black life as seen and heard on film. This program is an ode to piano virtuoso, Mary Lou Williams.

This afternoon program begins with an intimate performance by pianist and composer, Camila Cortina Bello in Schomburg Center’s Latimer Gallery. Bello will perform next to Aaron Douglas’s rousing four-panel mural, “Aspects of Negro Life” (1937) currently installed in the gallery as part of Schomburg’s centennial exhibition,100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity. The performance will be followed by a screening in the American Negro Theatre of an interview with the late Jazz pianist, Mary Lou Williams, selected from Schomburg’s Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division collection.

Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981) was not only the First Lady of jazz; she has a place at the very top echelon of the jazz pantheon. Ms. Williams wrote over 350 compositions throughout her rich and highly eclectic musical career. She also helped spawn an entire generation of young musicians during the 1940s that would precipitate the birth of one of the world’s most influential musical styles, known as bebop . Her students included musicians as influential and varied as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and countless others. (Source: Mary Lou Williams Foundation)

Images: Photo of Camila Cortina Bello with artworks from Aaron Douglas's four-panel mural "Aspects of Negro Life" on the left and the right as featured in the current exhibition 100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity at the Schomburg Center

Camila Cortina Bello is a Cuban-born pianist, composer, and educator whose music fuses Afro-Cuban traditions with jazz, classical, and world influences. A Berklee College of Music graduate, she has shared the stage with Paquito D’Rivera, Terri Lyne Carrington, Miguel Zenón, and Dianne Reeves, to name a few. In 2023, she was awarded a Next Jazz Legacy Fellowship, leading to performances at DC Jazz Festival, Ecuador Jazz Festival and Punta del Este Jazz Festival in Uruguay. Her solo piano pieceBravura premiered at London’s Barbican Centre in 2024, and she was a finalist for the Cintas Foundation Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition. She also appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk with the Afro-Cuban band OKAN. Originally from Havana, Camila’s music is deeply influenced by her cultural roots and global experiences. Now based in New Jersey, she actively performs in the New York music scene, continually expanding her artistic reach.

Space is limited.

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that no food or drinks are allowed in the exhibition galleries.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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