SOON

As a composer/vokalist/flutist Trina Coleman has had a close relationship to the poetry of Langston Hughes, a decades-long fascination with the Harlem Renaissance period, and is a practitioner of the diverse musical heritages she has chosen to weave into this composition.

 

Setting these texts to exist fluidly between genres creates a more vivid representation of this significant, empowering historical era. Elements of composition and improvisation are applied based on the tradition of each singers’ genre role for this performance.

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This project highlights the mixed race identity which is a natural byproduct of Norwegians emigrating out of Norway and intermingling with the broader world. This is an essential discussion in society today - how to process being a member of community from the multi-ethnic perspective. How to navigate a Norwegian heritage and upbringing when skin tone can send the involuntary message that one is somehow an outsider. Any questions of dual identity - being from one country but living in another; these questions lie at the root of identity and this poetry provides a unique and historically significant insight.

 

Trinas aim is to increase awareness and enjoyment of this historical period of artistic and cultural Renaissance and its global impact upon music history as a whole.

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The Artists:

 

The poetry of Langston Hughes is a significant choice for this composition as the three singers performing it share with him a similar, multiethnic heritage of African American/European and resonate with his work on a deeply personal level. For the majority of the work, each singer will embody a specific style of classical, blues, or jazz as the poetic texts encapsulate some of the most powerful and intimate expressions of the African American and multi-ethnic experiences. Composer Trina Coleman is originally from the USA (in Norway since 2016) and has decades of experience as a professional vocalist within multiple genres. She will focus this performance in the role of jazz singer/flutist. Camilla Tømta (Hamar), is the lead vocalist in the locally heralded Low-Fly Quintet with many years of gospel and jazz experience, will serve as the blues singer in this piece. Siv Misund (Oslo) is a highly skilled opera singer with additional experience in gospel/improvisational traditions. Pianist Ole Gjøstøl is skilled in the varying genre traditions required to accompany this project.

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Historical Background:

 

“The poet of the people,” Langston Hughes was one of the first to publicly set portions of the African American lived experience to word. After the first wave of the “Great Migration” when hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved up from the post-slavery American south in search of a better life, the New Orleans birthplace of jazz was relocated into the pulsing, fostering cultural environment of the Harlem section of Manhattan, New York. Despite often extreme poverty and discrimination - or perhaps because of it - the musical expressions of jazz clarified and flourished. These were the streets where young Ella Fitzgerald grew up pining for Billie Holiday’s autograph; where artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong forged their world-wide legacies. The simultaneous Prohibition era propelled white Americans to travel on the famous “A Train” into that cultural center for illegal booze, and then stay to experience this brilliant new musical movement. The unique timing of traveling audiences enabled a national consciousness of jazz to arise. The Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937) became a crucial link to a new spirit of determination and pride in African Americans across the US and opened toward a philosophical foundation of the eventual Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.

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