Lilli Lewis: PYRAMIDS Cantata

Lilli Lewis is launching a kickstarter.com campaign in support of her large scale classical work PYRAMIDS: A new cantata for Chorus, Orchestra and Soloists based on an epic poem by Black Arts Movement leader and American Book Awards winner Askia M. Touré.

The story of Africans in America holds resonance for every culture on the planet that has found itself imperiled by imperialism, but still recalls and seeks to restore the ancient vision of itself – one with a straightened spine and purposed gait. It is a narrative of operatic proportions by any measure, and this large scale work for chorus, orchestra and soloists, will attempt to tell the story in three parts, representing well over 75 minutes of music. Fund from the Kickstarter campaign will be used to complete what Emmy award-winning composer/pianist Dick Hyman has called “a worthy and ambitious project,” as well as to prepare the score for choral ensembles everywhere.  More information is available at www.pyramidscantata.com.

About The Author
Askia M. Touré is a poet and griot.  He spent early apprenticeships in New York under the critical guidance of Langston Hughes, John Oliver Killens and John Henrik Clarke.  Touré’s From the Pyramids to the Projects: Poems of Genocide and Resistance was a winner of the American Book Award for Literature in 1989.

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