Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 8 PM BEASLEY-CURTIS AUDITORIUM, MEMORIAL HALL

MELLON FOUNDATION DISTIL FELLOW This evening’s program will be announced from the stage.

46 BIGLovely readings and public talks based around the Toshi Reagon, Guitar & Vocals novel’s themes and pressing contemporary Gina Breedlove, Vocals issues. In its first year, Parable was performed Judith Casselberry, Guitar & Vocals at 19 venues across four continents for nearly Ganessa James, Guitar 10,000 people. Juliette Jones, Violin While Reagon’s expansive career has landed Ann Klein, Guitar her comfortably in residence at Carnegie Hall, Josette Newsam Marchak, Vocals the Paris Opera House, and Madison Square , Drums Garden, she is found just as easily at a music festival or local club. Her goal is to leave anyone who interacts with her feeling better ERFORMANCES by Toshi Reagon about themselves as human beings, and brings and BIGLovely are often referred to an approach driven by social consciousness as “church.” A powerful and dynamic and community engagement to everything she P undertakes. group of musicians, they’re known for their celebratory energy, of which the Huffington Reagon has been featured in the recent Post says, “Strangers and friends alike sit books Black Girls Rock! by Beverly Bond and stand together as a small community.” and Together We Rise, by the organizers While Toshi Reagon, who is a CPA Mellon of the Women’s March. In December 2018 Foundation DisTIL fellow, is no stranger to she released Spiritland, a record dedicated Carolina Performing Arts and the Chapel to her mother ( Hill community, this is BIGLovely’s first founder ) and her performance as a band at CPA. grandmother. She has produced recordings BIGLovely, which has more than 25 rotating for artists including Gina Breedlove, Sweet members, performs annually at Reagon’s Honey in the Rock, , and others. birthday concert at Joe’s Pub in New York City, Reagon has co-written operas with her and its members have performed in The mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Project with Michelle Dorrance and Dorrance director Robert Wilson, including The Dance, and Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of Temptation of St. Anthony and Zinnias: The the Sower. Life of Clementine Hunter. Reagon has also collaborated with Michelle Dorrance on The In 2017, BIGLovely was the house band for the Blues Project and on Can Women’s March, for which Reagon was also I Get A Witness: The Gospel of James Baldwin. music director and co-curator. They supported artists including Janelle Monae, Angelique Earlier this season, Reagon was named one Kidjo, Maxwell, The Indigo Girls, and Taina of four artists-in-residence for CPA’s Creative Asili. More recently, they’ve performed at Futures artist fellowship, the largest Mellon AfroPunk PowerJam 2018 and WORD*ROCK* Foundation-funded initiative that has been & SWORD, a festival founded by Toshi with awarded to CPA to date. She is also CPA’s the goal of musically celebrating women’s inaugural Mellon Foundation DisTIL fellow, lives. CPA hosted the US premiere of Reagon’s named in 2017. Her DisTIL residency comes to adaptation of Parable of the Sower with two a close this spring, culminating in The Alchemy sold-out performances in November 2017, of Change: A Parable Becoming. This event at which also featured discussions of the novel in CURRENT ArtSpace + Studio will feature Toshi collaboration with Durham-based community Reagon and BIGLovely, local artists, faculty, arts organization SpiritHouse and community students and community practitioners. ▪

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