[Critic’s Pick] Review: Exploring Langston Hughes in Song, Locally
NEW YORK TIMES: December 3, 2018
By Zachary Woolfe
“On the morning of July 16, 1964, James Powell, a 15-year-old black student, was shot and killed by an off-duty white police officer on East 76th Street in Manhattan, setting off days of protests and riots.
On Sunday afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, about half a mile from where the shooting took place, a member of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City read from Langston Hughes’s poem ‘Death in Yorkville,’ inspired by Powell’s death: ‘How many bullets does it take to kill a 15-year-old kid?’
You couldn’t help but walk the blocks to 76th Street in your mind as the chorus member spoke the lines….”
…
“…Jessie Montgomery provided a serene violin line in Mr. Gordon’s ‘Love Song for Antonia’ and wrote shimmering harmonies for the Young People’s Chorus in ‘Danse Africaine.'”
Read the full article here.