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Sights & Sounds: Angela Wellman

courtesy of Angela Wellman

Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene. Trombonist and founding director of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, Angela Wellman, told KALW’s Jen Chien about three exciting events happening around the Bay this weekend.

 

The 2016 GRAMMY winner for Best Jazz Vocal Album, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant and pianist Aaron Diehl return following their sold-out shows last year with a new collaboration that spans a century of music and sheds new light on the work of two giants of American songwriting. Built around an expanded version of Salvant’s trio, “Jelly and George” presents a new approach to the music of Jelly Roll Morton and George Gershwin. They'll be performing, along with pianist Adam Birnbaum, at SF Jazz Center on Friday, March 17th in the Miner Auditorium. 

WELLMAN: She is, for me, in that line, the lineage of great Black women jazz vocalists ... She's so creative, and, she can sing! What can I say? That child can sing. For real.

Credit Milton Bowens
courtesy of Omi Gallery

AND IT DON'T STOP is an exhibit of works by Milton Bowens at the Omi Gallery. Bowens depicts the lingering effects of slavery in America, and makes the visual argument that racism, inequality, social injustice and environmental injustice, have not gone away have arguably seen a resurgence. This exhibition asks the viewer to consider the following: some things change some things remain the same, "and it don't stop.” The exhibition will be up at Omi Gallery in Oakland through March 31st. 

WELLMAN: That is such a contested history. It's such a mixed bag of ugliness and beauty.

Credit Joan Marcus
(L-R). Akosua Busia, Lupita Nyong'o, Saycon Sengbloh, and Pascale Armand in a scene from the Original Broadway Cast of Danai Gurira's ‘Eclipsed’ directed by Liesl Tommy.

ECLIPSED is the story of five women brought together by upheaval in their homeland of Liberia. They forge a close-knit community, one that inspires them to feats of increasingly greater strength. Written by playwright Danai Gurira (star of AMC’s The Walking Dead) and directed by Liesl Tommy (whose Bay Area productions include RUINED, PARTY PEOPLE and HAMLET), ECLIPSED will run at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco through March 19th. 

WELLMAN: It brings the opportunity to be introduced to yet another experience of the African diaspora, and Africans in this part of the diaspora.