7 p.m. event at Main Auditorium is free and open to the public
The Core Ensemble, a critically acclaimed music group with an originally developed chamber music theatre program, will perform Of Ebony Embers: Vignettes of the Harlem Renaissance at UMass Dartmouth on Friday, January 27 at 7 p.m. in the Main Auditorium.
Core Ensemble has won acclaim for the development of a new genre of chamber music theatre works, as well as a long history of commissioning and performing contemporary chamber music.
Celebrating the music and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance era in New York City, Of Ebony Embers, written and directed by Akin Babatunde, examines the lives of three outstanding but very different African American poets - Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay - as seen through the eyes of the great painter and muralist Aaron Douglas.
The performance is part of the university’s Black History 4 Seasons ongoing program, which celebrates and honors the contributions of Black Americans in politics, social justice, literature, theater, visual arts, and music. Of Ebony Embers is sponsored by the Black History Four Seasons Council (BH4SC), Department of English, Black Studies Program, College of Arts & Sciences, and College of Visual & Performing Arts.
Chamber Music Theatre is an original performance format created by Core Ensemble, featuring a marriage of theatrical narrative to chamber music performance, with actors portraying multiple characters while interacting with the onstage musical trio of cello, piano and percussion.
Since 1993, the Core Ensemble has toured nationally to every region of the United States and internationally to England, Russia, the Ukraine, Australia and the British Virgin Islands. The Ensemble was the recipient of the 2000 Eugene McDermott Award for Excellence in the Arts awarded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has received support from the State of Florida Department of Cultural Affairs, New England Foundation for the Arts, Palm Beach County Cultural Council, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Virgil Thomson Foundation. Core Ensembleperforms music by African American composers ranging from jazz greats Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, to concert music composers Jeffrey Mumford and George Walker.