Langston Hughes Project performance set for Thursday

February 18, 2019 - The UWRF Center for Diversity, Inclusivity and Belonging has invited Ron McCurdy, professor of music and jazz studies at the USC Thornton School of Music, to present the Langston Hughes Project at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls on Thursday, Feb. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Abbott Concert Hall in the Kleinpell Fine Arts building. The performance is free and open to the public.

According to their web page, "The Langston Hughes Project is a multimedia concert performance of Langston Hughes's kaleidoscopic jazz poem suite "Ask Your Mama," Hughes's homage in verse and music to the struggle for artistic and social freedom at home and abroad at the beginning of the 1960s. Ask Your Mama is a 12-part epic poem which Hughes scored with musical cues drawn from blues and Dixieland, gospel songs, boogie woogie, bebop and progressive jazz, Latin "cha cha" and Afro-Cuban mambo music, German lieder, Jewish liturgy, West Indian calypso, and African drumming -- a creative masterwork left unperformed at his death. A joyous celebration of music, spoken word and visuals, the Langston Hughes Project is performed by the impressively versatile Ron McCurdy (as narrator and on trumpet) and his talented group of musicians (on piano, bass and drums) who make heads bob, fingers snap and feet tap throughout." 
 
For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/2084058994994705/ or https://www.bicoastalproductions.com/the-langston-hughes-project/ or call the UWRF Center for Diversity, Inclusivity and Belonging at 715-425-3300.