Ebony Roots Concert, Part 2 travels through more than a century of powerful Black music, February 9
Spanning work songs, Blues, opera, and more, Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre’s project comes to full fruition at the Roundhouse
Ebony Roots: Concert, Part 2 takes place on February 9 at 8 pm at the Performance Centre in the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre
THE SECOND HALF OF AN ambitious new concert series aimed at celebrating Black music’s impact over the past few century is coming to full fruition for Black History Month.
Ebony Roots: Concert, Part 2 journeys through the emancipation of Black identity and culture from the North American perspective, starting with prison work songs and travelling through passionate spirituals into stage musicals and opera (think Porgy & Bess), finally arriving at the explosion of Black Soul, R&B, Blues and Motown.
In other words, it will take you through struggle and pain to hope and empowerment—its performers adeptly leaping between genres and styles, while paying homage to the music’s originators.
Expect to discover a few Black Vancouver-based musicians, including the Crump Twins (a guitar and drums player who were two of the city’s most recognizable entertainers from the late 1940s to the early 1960s) and late soul-singing legend Jason Hoover—not to mention guitar icon Jimi Hendrix, whose grandmother, Nora Hendrix, was a prominent community member in Hogan’s Alley.
The event follows the Part 1 concert held in December at Strathcona Church, in the heart of the Black neighbourhood Ebony Roots hopes to reclaim through its musical history lessons. That smaller show also served as a preview of this larger project.
Produced by Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre—the group behind thought-provoking works from Theatre for the Ears! to Angel’s Bone—the concert is led by music director Olaf de Shield and coproducer-founder Brandon Thornhill, who has a Masters in Music from UBC.
The music content was chosen by a talented group of genre-spanning artists of Black/African descent: vocalist Thornhill, vocalist and blues-gospel veteran Leo D.E Johnson, guitarist-vocalist de Shield, bassist-vocalist Russell Jackson, percussionist Carlos Joe Costa, and keyboardist Wayne Stewart.
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