Morrison to Present Chamber Music Theater

Actress Shinnerrie Jackson (from the event page for the performance being discussed)

The next program in the 2019–2020 season of the Morrison Artists Series, presented by the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University (SFSU) will depart from the usual expectations for a chamber music concert. The music will be performed by a trio; but the trio will consist of cello, piano, and percussion, a New York-based group called THE CORE ENSEMBLE. They will be joined by actress Shinnerrie Jackson to perform a full-length musical theater work entitled Ain’t I A Woman! The text was created by Kim Hines to examine the life and times of four powerful African-American women: novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, ex-slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth, folk artist Clementine Hunter, and civil rights worker Fannie Lou Hamer. The musical score is drawn from the heartfelt spirituals and blues of the Deep South, the urban vitality of the Jazz Age, and contemporary concert music by African-American composers such as Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach and Diane Monroe.

Like all Morrison chamber music events, this concert will take place in the Creative Arts Building at SFSU, a short walk to the west from the SFSU Muni stop at the corner of 19th Avenue and Holloway Avenue. It will held in Knuth Hall at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 15. Tickets are free but advance registration is highly desirable. Reservations may be made through the event page for this performance. As usual, there will be a pre-concert lecture, which will begin 2 p.m., also in Knuth Hall. Representatives of THE CORE ENSEMBLE will participate with SFSU Artistic Director Cyrus Ginwala as interlocutor. The talk requires neither registration nor tickets.