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University to celebrate Langston Hughes with events April 9-13
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The University will celebrate the work of African-American poet Langston Hughes April 9-13.
The Langston Hughes Project is intended to raise public awareness of the cultural significance of the life and work of the African-American writer and poet. It is presented by the School of Music's Center for Southern African American Music (CSAM).
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American writer and poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967); as a young man, circa 1922, above, and in 1939, below.
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"Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance," said Tayloe Harding, dean of the School of Music. "His poetry and literary works helped shape American literature and politics. But Hughes also had a tremendous influence on the music history of this country because Hughes himself was very influenced by music--jazz especially. I'm pleased that the Langston Hughes Project will highlight Hughes' work in such a creative and interdisciplinary way."
The project will culminate with a performance by jazz musician and director Ron McCurdy, director of jazz studies at the University of Southern California, at 7 p.m. April 13 at the Columbia Museum of Art. The Ron McCurdy Quartet will perform Hughes' 12-part epic poem Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961) as a multimedia presentation that combines a reading of the poem with newly composed and arranged music and images of paintings and photographs by Harlem Renaissance artists.
Tickets are $5 for adults and $2 for students and will be available at the door. The event is free for Columbia Museum of Art members.
The performance will coincide with the opening of an exhibit of Jacob Lawrence's "Migration Series" at the museum. Lawrence is considered one of the most important African-American painters of the 20th century and a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. The exhibit will feature 17 panels from Lawrence's series that depicts the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North during and after World War I.
Langston Hughes is considered among the greatest African-American writers. Best known for his poetry and his influential work during the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, plays, children's work, and newspaper columns. Born in Joplin, Miss., in 1902, Hughes was largely influenced by Harlem's jazz and blues clubs of the 1920s and 1930s.
USC's CSAM will present The Langston Hughes Project in partnership with the African American Studies Program. the University's S.C. Poetry Initiative, and the Columbia Museum of Art. The University's Arts Institute is sponsoring the event.
For more information, contact Julie Hubbert, CSAM director, at 7-3214.
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Poetry reading, jazz class, and lecture set for Hughes Project
Leading up to CSAM's Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz performance will be a series of events for the public:
- April 9, "Reading the Radical Hughes," a roundtable discussion about political and social context of Hughes' work featuring USC faculty members Qiana Whitted, English; Bobby Donaldson, history and African American Studies Program; and Todd Shaw, political science. 4 p.m., Russell House, Room 302. Free.
- April 11, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." USC student artists from art, music, theatre, poetry, and dance respond to Hughes' seminal essay, which first appeared in 1926. Reading by guest artist David Mills and moderated by Kwame Dawes, English, and director of the S.C. Poetry Initiative. 7 p.m., Black Box Theater in the Booker T. Washington Auditorium, Wheat Street. Free.
- April 12, Jazz Masterclass with The Ron McCurdy Quartet. A clinic for student and community jazz musicians on the relationship between poetry and jazz and multi-media jazz performance techniques. 7:30 p.m., School of Music Recital Hall. Free.
- April 13, Guest lecture: "Hughes, Poetry, and Jazz." Ron McCurdy, a visiting professor of jazz studies from the University of Southern California, will discuss the importance of music in Hughes' life and work. 1:25 p.m., School of Music Recital Hall. Free.
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