Sing Sistah Sing! Summer 2022
Summer brings new adventures for Sing Sistah Sing! I am currently in rehearsals creating the piece Tales of Transatlantic Freedom with my new producers at Yard Heads International. I have the honour of collaborating with the brilliant pianist and composer Howard Moody and renowned Scottish theatre director John Paul McGroarty. We open at the brand new community-based venue 391 The Pianodrome in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 19th of August at 19:00 with further performances until the 26th of August. See my calender page for all dates. This show will expand the Sing Sistah Sing! series of shows. It is a joyful, soulful exploration of the voice of the African Diaspora and its connections to Scotland. Please visit this link for tickets and further information.
This spring has also been filled with artistic firsts and a joyful return to the opera stage!
First up was the premier of the moving image project OMOS at the Dunoon Burgh Hall. We had a wonderful audience on the opening night, and they really engaged with the exhibit and its themes of Scottish Black joy and performance. This was my first collaboration with the wonderful queer cabaret company Pollyanna. In addition to the moving image short and the behind-the-scenes short film, I created two new workshops. First up was the Gospel workshop, it was exciting to work with local participants and to explore the beautiful genre of choral gospel singing. It was a treat to do this workshop for the first time in Scotland. The second workshop was Our History in Words and Music, where I did a short Sing Sistah Sing! performance highlighting the queer artists in the show, and we worked together to explore possible personal narratives for the participants to begin to tell their own stories. The OMOS moving image project, with more workshops and outreach, comes to Edinburgh on September 3rd at the Royal Scottish Academy. There will be several events around this opening in the capitol so do watch this space!
I finally returned to the opera world as Euphrat in Babylon for the International May Festival in Wiesbaden Germany. This epic Jörg Widmann opera was a huge success led by a wonderful team; director Daniela Kerck, costume design Andrea Schmidt-Futterer and music direction from Albert Horne. In addition to the incredible music and staging, this was the first production in my long operatic career where a costume, including my wig, had been created for a black woman performing the role. I am so grateful to my “Stammhaus Wiesbaden” for giving me the experience of portraying a character that so outwardly displayed my blackness. It was truly a transformative experience. Read about it here.
After Babylon, it was off to London for my debut at the iconic Wigmore Hall as part of the Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Friends concert on May 5th. What a night it was! I first met Ayanna at the Edinburgh International Festival last year with the Chineke! Orchestra, who commissioned and performed the world premier her piece Blush. I was honoured to be asked to sing her composition Brown Sounds for the Wigmore Hall event. The evening was a beautiful showcase of her extraordinary body of work, presented by some of the UK’s most exciting young musicians.
I am so looking forward to the summer of theatre and music making, and I am grateful to be back performing in my beloved Scotland and creating with brilliant new artistic partners. I hope to see you at a performance!
#JoinTheCelebration #SingSistahSing #YS2022 #Edinburghfringe #TalesofTransatlanticFreedom