The Chickering salon series
Saturday September 23, 2023 7PM
Afrika-Gente
Led by bandleader, drummer and percussionist Cornell Coley, Afrika- Gente melds the traditions of Afro- Latin jazz and Caribbean music into an enticing feast of sounds, rhythms, and dances that celebrate life and living. Featuring original and genre bending arrangements, it’s irresistible!
Cornell Coley
Sunday September 24, 2023 3PM
A Night of Music
Nigerian musicians Innocent Okechukwu (piano) and Blessing Agu (soprano) perform original and classical pieces. The young artists bring special personal talents and sensitivity to performances, with music highlighting their African heritage as well as their highly developed and impressive skills in the classical realm.
Saturday September 30, 2023 3PM
Jazz at the Gallery
John Kordalewsi (piano), Kurtis Rivers (alto saxophone), and Bronek Suchanek (bass) will perform an afternoon of jazz.
Sunday October 1, 2023 3PM
Step Into My Parlor and Meet the Piano: the story of pianos in America and some American piano music
At one point the piano was the ultimate status symbol, found in nearly every home. Come hear the story of how that happened and hear some of the music written by Americans for this omnipresent instrument!
Friday October 6, 2023 7PM
Hip Hop: Born in the Bronx, Gift to the World
Hip Hop artists Daniel Laurent and Premo Dee in conversation with Jamaal Bonnette and Fredericka King about the influence of early hip hop on their music and the legacy of this art form. Each artist will perform a short set.
Artist/ Filmmaker/ Creative/ Community Advocate - Daniel Laurent is a recording artist, writer, impulse speaker and small business owner that centers around intentionality and increasing the Black dollar in the community from 6 hours to 7 days. He recently wrote, starred and funded a short film entitled "Cry for Me" which centers around domestic violence and sexual abuse. His goal is to use his male voice to amplify the awareness and fight against and stand in solidarity with survivors and also make intentional actions to course correct to reduce the amount of new victims being created. Daniel Laurent's daily mantra as well as Black Dollar's tagline is "Intentionality is the Only Option"
Raised between Brockton,Ma and Gwinnett County,GA, Boston based Premo.Dee is an explorer!! The excitement of the cultural leaps and bounds taken during the blog area, and the early introduction of internet culture left the door wide open for him to pursue interests in both music and fashion. Self expression wasn’t always the easiest thing for him. He still always found a way, adapting to change from an early age. Telling the story of a young black man, raised by a single parent mother, coming face to face with the world in order to voice the most important opinion of himself. He has goals of cementing his name amongst the stylistic greats of music, as well as pushing the boundaries of creative expression further everyday.
Jamaal Bonnette is an artist out of Brockton, Mass. Also known as Barry, Jamaal has been painting and displaying his work since its early inception in 2014. Barry has displayed his work in galleries across Boston, particularly at the Piano Craft Gallery for a month long interactive exhibit (2019). The Stacey Adams Cultural Building also housed and displayed Jamaal’s work for a month long multi-artist exhibit (2019). Also being housed in buildings such as The Liquid Art House (2017) and Savvor Night Club in Boston, Jamaal has also teamed up with the Culture Collection of CT, to displaying his art in Hartford (2016). He was also spotlight artist for a week long installation at Canvas of Memphis in Memphis TN (2018). Lastly he’s regularly in Rhode Island as part of Bond Brotherhood annual Art Show.
Saturday October 7, 2023 7PM
An Evening With Pianist Fredericka King
An Informal program, featuring piano music of classical and American composers, women and African American composers.
Fredericka King
Fredericka King, pianist, has been praised for her lyricism, expressiveness, beautiful warmth of tone and outstanding technique. Critics and audiences have lauded her recitals, performed in the United States, Europe, and South America. The New York Times complimented her debut performance at Carnegie Recital Hall for its "straightforward style and verve."
Ms. King has performed in the United States, Europe and South America. Recitals have been presented at historic Jordan Hall, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the Gardner Museum, and in concert as soloist with several New England orchestras. She was the featured artist on television and public radio stations such as WGBH in Boston, WVPR in Vermont, and WGMS in the Washington, D.C. area.
As soloist and collaborative artist, Fredericka has performed at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the National Gallery of Art, and the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She appeared in numerous programs as soloist and accompanist with the National Spiritual Ensemble, touring throughout the United States, and was a founding member La Femme, La Femme, a group dedicated to the performance of chamber and solo works by women composers. In 2017 Fredericka performed as soloist and with a piano trio at the Interharmony Festival in Acqui Terme, Italy. Most recently she performed in recital at the Eagle Hill Institute in Steuben, Maine.
Ms. King’s recitals feature works of Classical composers and highlight the works of women, American, and African-American composers, as on her CD A Born Pianist. Additional recordings include one of solo and vocal works by American women titled Hooray for the Ladies! with the group American Classics and a CD of chamber music by the African-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with the Coleridge Ensemble. She also designed, recorded, and produced the 3 CD set Piano Classics for Young Listeners.
Fredericka has studied with Maria Donska, Katja Andy, Maria Clodes, Dr. Harold Martina, Jose Feghali, and performed in Master classes with Stanislav Oudenitch, Yoheved Kaplinsky, John Owings, Eric Tawastjerna, and Barry Douglas. Her academic background includes degrees from Boston Conservatory and New England Conservatory, and doctoral studies at Boston University. She studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria and was awarded a Teaching Diploma by the Royal College of Music in London, England, and also Ms. King is Senior Music Historian-in-Residence at Emerson College and a member of the piano faculty at New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School and maintains a private piano studio. She also teaches an adult piano class and a History of Western Music course in the Conservatory’s Continuing Education Department.
Sunday October 8, 2023 3PM
Closing Reception Performance with Veronica Leahy and Emmanuel Michael
Veronica and Emmanuel will perform a set at the HARMONY: Art and Music at the Piano Factory during the closing artists’ reception.
Veronica Leahy is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music director across a range of genres. She recently graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, having studied in the Dual Degree program with Berklee College of Music. Veronica continually seeks to expand the possibilities and boundaries of her craft.
As an undergraduate, Veronica composed four full-length original musicals. The most recent, Queen of Magic, premiered to sold-out audiences at the Loeb Ex theater in December of 2022. She served as the composer for Harvard’s iconic Hasty Pudding Theatricals for two seasons, and her debut musical at Harvard was Fake Moos, the annual First-Year Musical production. Her senior thesis American Tonic, a song cycle exploring chronic illness and the insulin crisis, received highest honors.
Seeking to foster open-minded dialogue around music composition and empower students to share their work regardless of genre or categorization, Veronica founded the Harvard Student Composer’s Festival. It brings together students and world-renowned composers alike to share and discuss original pieces and has become an annual event. Veronica also served as a music director for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players and as music assistant for MacBeth in Stride at the American Repertory Theater (ART). Most recently, she co-music directed ART’s Little Amal Walks Across America.
Veronica received Harvard’s Sophia Freund Prize, the Radcliffe Doris Cohen Levi Prize, the Detur Book Prize, and was a John Harvard scholar. At Berklee, she was part of the Jazz and Gender Justice Institute and served as the lead alto saxophonist in the school’s premiere big band. As a jazz saxophonist, Veronica has appeared with artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Jon Batiste and Stay Human, and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. She has performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, Birdland, Dizzy’s Club, and 54 Below. She appears on the GRAMMY Award-winning album New Standards, Vol. 1.
Currently, she is part of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York.
Born and raised in South Dakota as a first-generation Ugandan and Southern Sudanese, Emmanuel is a New York City based artist who believes that self-identity can only be discovered through reflecting upon one’s surroundings with gratitude, self-reflection, and empathy.
