King Sophia (photo by Marisa Klug-Morataya)

We meet again on a Sunday afternoon for our AfriClassical Futures Series on May 5th! At this show, we’ll be featuring Detroit-based artist King Sophia(they/she) as they present the music and legacy of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson as a profound representation of Classical Black Folk Songs. It will be a deep dive into Perkinson's Lamentations, the folk songs within, and the stories surrounding the music and composer. Interspersed between King Sophia's performances of the Black Folk/Song Suite for solo cello will be stories of Perkinson's life and community, including the cellist he wrote the piece for, Ronald Lipscomb, and their work as part of America's first integrated symphony orchestra. We’ll also hear improvised folk songs performed by series curators Julian Otis and olula negre based on the traditional Black motifs found in Lamentations. The evening will conclude with all three performers improvising folk songs based on the entirety of the work and the meaning behind it.

This will be an incredibly special matinee, and we hope you can join us!

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Artist Bios

King Sophia is a multidisciplinary storyteller and world-builder. Classically trained with a degree from the prestigious Frost School of Music - University of Miami, King Sophia's cellistic prowess and prodigious compositional skills are their main processors for the world around them. As a well-rounded creator with roots in many genres from blues to bossa nova to avant-garde, every presentation of their work is grounded in King’s identities of Black Indigenous Queerness and a desire to preserve, showcase, and build upon non-hegemonic music history. Using these core cultural threads as a foundation for their practices, King Sophia explores art and intention through a holistic lens to concoct sonic experiences that motivate, illuminate, alleviate, and empower.

This series is made possible with the support of the Paul M. Angell Foundation