[music]

Davóne Tines: It- it split me. In one-- in one instance it- it split me in two. 'Cause I-I had never thought of using different voices to do different things, because up until that point, my music-making had been a kind of seamless line.

Helga Davis: What does it mean to bring your whole self to your work? And what is the impact of feeling you can't? I'm Helga Davis. Opera singer, Davóne Tines, joined me to work through the complexities of making work for an audience who doesn't look like you, and trying to bridge the gap of understanding. This is my conversation with Davóne Tines.

[music]

Davóne Tines: So lovely to hear your voice.

Helga Davis: Davóne.

Davóne Tines: Helga.

Helga Davis: Where have you been?

Davóne Tines: Oh.

[laughter]

Helga Davis: Okay.

[laughter]

Helga Davis: Okay.

Davóne Tines: Amen.

[laughter]

Helga Davis: Amen. And amen and amen.

Davóne Tines: Where have I been? I just got back to Raleigh, North Carolina where I live with my brother, and I've been here through most of the past year and a half, and I've just started going back out into the world-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -to do work.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: Um, and I've really appreciated this sense of coming back home.

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Davóne Tines: Now that I have one, I feel like, you know.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: 'Cause I've- I've been here for most of the past months, and, um, you know, my things are here. I've gotten to set it up in the way that I like. I've got my Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson's over there.

Helga Davis: But also interesting that this- this feels like home now.

Davóne Tines: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: I don't know that for as long as I've known you, that there's been such a place. There's always been a place where your things are-

Davóne Tines: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -where you- you go back to and leave from, to go do the other things that you do in the world.

Davóne Tines: Yes.

Helga Davis: But maybe not necessarily a place that I've heard you use the word home about.

Davóne Tines: Yes. Mm. And, um, yeah, it's been really beautiful feeling that.

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Davóne Tines: Um, I just came from seeing my grandparents for about three days, which was an old home, um, a place where I grew up and-

Helga Davis: Which is where?

Davóne Tines: It's in Northern Virginia. So about an hour and a half southwest of DC out in the country, out in Horse Country.

Helga Davis: With horses?

Davóne Tines: With horses, I kind of rode them. That was something white people did a lot. Um, [chuckles] my great grandfather actually was a pretty noted horse trainer. And so he worked on a really large, um, farm there. They call them farms, but they're really ranches.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: You know, hundreds and hundreds of acres across from a-a beagle kennel where they- they always have at least 500 beagles. And they have fox hunts every Saturday. And so, you know, those paintings with the horses and the red velvet outfits and people dashing over hills, that happened across the street most- most weekends.

Helga Davis: And so how on earth did you get from there to where you've been and where you are now?

Davóne Tines: Hmm. I was just in LA actually for a little bit working with violinist, Jennifer Koh. And we, um, we're working on this thing called Everything That Rises Must Converge, where we talk about meeting each other in the midst of the classical music world as two minorities. And part of what we've been thinking about while making this is this, um, idea that it takes three generations to make an artist.

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Davóne Tines: Um, one, to pull the family out of poverty, the second, to educate or to be educated. And then the third has the freedom to be an artist. And, um-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -so when you say, um, you know, how did I get here from there, um, I've thought about this a little bit, especially now visiting my grandparents. They really allowed me to be really free. I realize more and more.

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Davóne Tines: Um, you know, my grandfather was, um, one of 15 children, and my grandmother grew up on a farm too, and they worked extremely hard.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And my mother worked hard in her own ways too. And I realized what they had provided me when I was little was freedom. Uh, freedom of even expectations, freedom of, um, not having to decide what I wanted to do vocationally-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -until I felt it right. And I-I think, you know, I remember sitting in- in our yard with my grandfather after I had graduated college. Um, I went to Harvard for undergrad, and, you know, there's a certain expectation that you're gonna jump into the career field. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I gotten to explore a lot of things, and I remember us sitting outside and he said basically, "Son, you don't have to know."

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Davóne Tines: "You just have to try something."

[laughter]

Helga Davis: What do you think allowed them that kind of- of spaciousness in their thinking? Especially if you end up at a place like Harvard, the expectation that you then might be the one to go into some field that lifts the family out of poverty, that makes a way, perhaps in part for yourself, uh, but then for a future generation also, that you would have that responsibility, in addition to helping the family and helping yourself. Why were they able to say that to you?

Davóne Tines: You know, I don't fully know, but in- in thinking about it just now, um, and in conversations I have with my brother, everyone in my family works at-at what they do. Everybody in-in their own way, in their own capacity has a certain work ethic or a drive. And part of what I guessed is that they knew that that was part of our family, like in the DNA.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: So I was going to find it-

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Davóne Tines: -whatever it was. And they knew that I'd be driven toward it. So I think my grandfather's kind of freeing but encouraging statement of, "You don't have to know what it is. You just have to try something," um, he knew that I would keep going until I found it.

Helga Davis: And so were you singing all this time?

Davóne Tines: Yes, but in- in ways that I hadn't identified as performing. I grew up going to Providence Baptist Church, which is actually, um, I-I'd say a four-minute drive down the road from our house. Music-making then it was, um, it was all for a reason. You were in choir rehearsal for two to four hours every Saturday from whatever age you could be there. I remember, you know, being, I guess a somewhat conscious toddler. [chuckles] And sitting there and then being in elementary school. And I remember I wallowed on the floor once, and that wasn't okay. But, you know, we'd been there for three and a half hours and I said, "It's Saturday."

Helga Davis: Absolutely.

[laughter]

Davóne Tines: Let's do anything else. So singing there was, um, was- was with family. Our- our entire choir was made up of extended family.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: You know, by marriage or- or by blood. We- we were a whole family of maybe 22 people, um, making music for church.

Helga Davis: Was- was classical music part of your upbringing also? Did someone listen to it in the house? Did you have it at school?

Davóne Tines: It wasn't listened to in the house, but it got slowly injected. Um, I was watching PBS one day, and I remember watching a performance of the Rite of Spring. And I remember seeing the orchestra and being fascinated by violins, you know, the sound and how they-- you-- they were held under the neck. And, um, it was just about time to be in school and pick out an instrument to play. So I picked the violin and, um, I-- yeah, I was-- I was fascinated. But al-also, um, piano was at the beginning too. My grandfather played piano.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: My grandmother showed me a picture of the band that my grandfather was in in high school called The Swinging Nights. And he played piano, and so we always have had a piano in our house. And, um, he- he told me once-- he said one winter when we were snowed in, in Virginia, 'cause, you know, sometimes it snows two to four feet in January. We were stuck in the house for a long time. And he said, "I wandered over to the piano and plucked a note." And he said he thinks that note got stuck in my head forever.

Helga Davis: Because?

Davóne Tines: Because then I-I just wanted to figure that out.

Helga Davis: Oh.

Davóne Tines: I wanted to figure out the piano. I wanted lessons, and then it turned into violin. And so because of playing those instruments, I slowly got introduced to classical music.

Helga Davis: It's a very different voice, though.

Davóne Tines: Mm.

Helga Davis: It's all your voice. It all comes from you, from your experience, but it's a different kind of production of sound.

Davóne Tines: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: When did that start? And was there any conflict with you or your-your peoples about the difference in those sounds, and who they were intended for?

Davóne Tines: My grandfather really encouraged me to sing. And he encouraged me to study at our train. He knew I had a big, loud, [chuckles] unique voice, and, um, he-he encouraged me to go to, uh, choir singing musicals. And then when I got to college, I thought I would take voice lessons. And I found a teacher who is wonderful, and-and we still talk today. But there's one particular lesson when all of that became really clear in terms of what voice to-to be or what voice to go toward. And when you're a young singer, you're put through paces of singing the Italian songs and arias. And I chose one called Lasciatemi morire that I thought was soulful 'cause it was in a minor key. And it was very chromatic. And, um, you know, listening through and playing through all of them, I was like, "This is the one. This is the one that I'm gonna start with."

And I sing the song for her in our lesson, and she said, "There's a way that you sing in a church that is different than how you sing this music." And I really appreciate this woman, and she helped me understand a lot of things, but I know that that was difficult for her to tell me. And I know that it was a spade in my head-

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: -at that moment.

Helga Davis: What do you mean a spade in your head?

Davóne Tines: It-it split me.

Helga Davis: Oh.

Davóne Tines: In one instance, i-it split me in two, 'cause I-I had never thought of using different voices to do different things.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: I had never thought consciously or in the front of my mind that there was one way to do this and another way to do that, because up until that point, my music-making had been a kind of seamless line.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: You know, from church, adding in the piano, adding in the violin, in high school, playing in state orchestra, um, a Mendelssohn symphony and saying, "This is the same as a Kurt Franklin chord progression." [laughs] And being so excited about all of those similarities, and I-I had these thoughts of, you know, Mendelssohn crouching behi-behind a church or in a-in a field listening to Black people sing, [laughs] and then writing that into his work. Um.

Helga Davis: You wrote it here first. You heard it here first.

Davóne Tines: [laughs] But that was the first time, you know, someone told me directly there's a difference.

Helga Davis: Speak about some other defining moments with regard to that split.

Davóne Tines: So I co-created a show called The Black Clown, and it is the setting of a Langston Hughes poem, primarily about a Black man identifying his oppression. Coming to terms with it by walking through 300 years of American history, and then, um, transcending it by realizing his resilience passed down through time. And we spent about three years just figuring out the music. And then we had staging workshops. And I remember the first one was another one of these moments of contending with this split, or this factioning of styles and ways of-of being Black. You know, I had been through the classical music world. I went to Juilliard, and I've sung a lot of more modern contemporary classical pieces. And this musical essentially, is-is the amalgamation of so many different styles from, you know, kind of florid, American song to gospel, to protest music, to jazz and different things.

And those things were in my voice in various ways, and it was important to show further facets by inviting other people and their voices into this expression. And the first days of needing the rest of the cast who are mainly in-incredible performers from Broadway, it was like being forced to contend with that split that had happened. You know, this-this piece that I had lived with for years, and had wrestled with and worked to create, but upon having to do the first thing through being as nervous and anxiety-ridden as, you know, it-it was like I went back in time 10 years or something.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: I don't remember a time, you know, before being a professional, that I was ever that nervous.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: You know, you get nervous and you get excited about something, but never this like almost incapacitating-

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: -feeling of like dread. And-and this happened when I got to the spiritual in the show Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen. And it's in a more modern gospel style, but mixed with older spiritual, and, um, it involves a lot of runs. It involves a certain facility, a way of moving the voice that for the longest time I had come out in a very measured way.

I remember in-in undergrad, I wanted to write a thesis on the comparison of, you know, various schools of Black gospel runs and Baroque ornamentation because I think they have very similar-

Helga Davis: Absolutely.

Davóne Tines: -I won't say qualities, but a lot of similarities-

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Davóne Tines: -in terms of what they're meant to-to be and-and how they're extensions of expression, but I immediately was frozen at the opportunity, or the need to express myself this way in front of people that I thought want did it so much better than me-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -had had such a long and direct connection with that form of music making.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: That, um, it-it really stopped me in my tracks. And I faced a feeling of otherness that I don't think I had felt before.

Helga Davis: Was it yours, your feeling, or do you feel that the people in the room felt that about you?

Davóne Tines: A combination of both, but very much strongly the latter.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: And, um, I had to find and stand on the fact that, you know, Blackness is not monolithic.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: We come from different places. I grew up in a southern Black Baptist tradition, and my grandma's fried chicken is better than most people's, if not everyone's. [laughs] But-but, um, my fervor in singing religious music was as true and as deep, or at least I knew that that was there for me, it was the foundation of the music-making I did, and I had to stand up in that and not allow that to be doubted by anyone. You know, I-I-I put this work into this for years, and require that it's an all-Black cast, require that, you know, we engage this storytelling with sensitivity. And I said, "I have worked my ass off to get us all here-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -and I'm not gonna be afraid of us being here now."

Helga Davis: Talk about the role of the spiritual.

Davóne Tines: Yes. So, Juilliard was a really complicated time. Longer story short, I left Harvard, I worked in arts administration in a lot of different ways. I thought that's how I would be involved in the arts. And one job I had was being a stage manager, and then a production manager for the George Mason University opera program. And so I did a lot of administrative work. I also sat in the booth a lot with the lighting designer and figured things out. And after watching, you know, a whole season of shows, I thought, "I could do that. "I know how this works." And, um, I gave myself the challenge of auditioning for conservatories. And if I didn't get in, I would go to business school.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And so I got into Juilliard, the one conservatory I did get into, and I took it as a sign to go. And I went in really earnestly knowing I wanted to get some tools for expression to, you know, technically figure out or do something with my voice, and figure out how to communicate that way. And what I found was that I was conscripted into a factory-

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: -for pumping out people in a mold, and that the ideas of tools for communication was ancillary. But, um, you're really here so that we can make you a cog, and the machine is across the street.

Helga Davis: The cog being Lincoln Center, or The Met.

Davóne Tines: The cog being Lincoln Center, the cog being The Met, and part of that learning, you know, putting you through your paces, this German art song, is learning leader. And, you know, I remember trying to choose or find where I would enter into that. Um, and there's a common bass-baritone song cycle, Winterreise. And, um, I had to contend with, you know, I'm-I'm not a straight white German man, and I don't experience love in this way.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: So I just didn't-- I didn't know how to get into it, honestly. So in terms of spirituals, I feel like I didn't really find that for me until the middle of my second year there, my last year there, where you- you're taught how to program a recital-

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: -um, which has a very clear form of, you know, you sing some German art song set, and a French song set, and maybe some, you know, uh, antique Italian pieces or arias or songs. And then in the second half, you sing maybe American things. And then at the final part, is where you-you sing fun things, things that, you know, show either some of your individuality or personality, or, you know, some of the songs from your "culture."

[laughter]

Helga Davis: Ouch. Ouch, that hurt.

Davóne Tines: And so this, um, this led me to think, well, what is that part for me? [laughs]

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm. Mm.

Davóne Tines: Um, and-and it-it led me to, you know, exploring, uh, Moses Hogan spirituals, and thinking about that more deeply in terms of where did these songs come from? And it made me think more of, um, what Leontyne Price once said of, you know, I have sung your lead, I've sung your folk songs, and now I'm going to sing mine.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And that's when she sang spirituals.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And that opened up the idea of engaging spirituals as equal to or bigger than even, um, these-these songs.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And what I always continue to connect to was the fact that this is music that came out of necessity.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: This wasn't music that came out of some superfluous need to, um, express an individual feeling. This is a collective music, a music that came when people didn't know what else to say-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -or do.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And in-in the darkest part or version of human existence, um, this was their gathering place. So I always knew that there was strength there, and so I started to sing these Moses Hogan spirituals, and that kind of gave me a way back into all these other things I had to do.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Davóne Tines: If I sang, There is a balm in Gilead, and it's about saying, I know that there's a solution somewhere. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. Then I found this other, this German song by Brahms, and it's called Die Mainacht. And I love that song because I felt like I found something soulful in it. There's this incredible long phrase, Und die einsame Träne. So the song is about someone wandering through the night, or wandering, you know, in the moonlight, um, missing someone that they love-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -that's gone away, and they see two turtle doves in a tree loving each other, and-and they say, I don't have my-my person. And after that, they-they-they cry out and they say, um, just one tear, linger- lingers, einsame Träne. And the way that that phrase is written is two things. It's-it's the melody of it, and it's also the chords, um, and I'll quietly-

[music]

But the way that it's written, it's-

[music]

And you gotta go through that.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Davóne Tines: And it's a long phrase, and it's a whale. And, um, I-I remember a coach once saying, "You know, usually, we have the pianist, you know, speed up and get through it."

Helga Davis: Oh.

Davóne Tines: And he said, "You-you want it to slow down?" And I said, "Yes."

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Davóne Tines: "It's a phrase and it's a whale of this person." And I-I figured out one day that, you know, me in that song, because it was a little more open, not this particular, you know, white man wandering around missing this woman in the cold.

[laughter]

But it was- it was about somebody who lost somebody that they love and-and is, um, crying about that. And I thought about my mother-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -who died in 2009, about four years before this. And I thought, there's someone in my life that I love that I don't have. And when I, you know, thought on that and saying this long long phrase, I felt that it was a place to put all of that, that, you know, the reason I was able to sustain that phrase for so long was because that's how much I had-had to get out, you know?

Helga Davis: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Davóne, I'm just happy that I finally got to ask you that question. It's been such a-a place of contention in part for me because I feel that quite often, the audiences for whom or with whom we sing those songs get some kind of out-

Davóne Tines: Mm.

Helga Davis: -for present-day sorrows.

Davóne Tines: That just made me think of two things.

Helga Davis: Okay.

Davóne Tines: I feel like I've been walking towards something with respect to that, with, um, engaging my own connection and-and sorrow with these songs too, trying to talk about why that sorrow existed in the first place and who caused it, and how do we eradicate that.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And one step along that journey has-has been with the composer, Tyshawn Sorey. I asked him to set some spirituals in a set of three songs called Songs for Death. And I asked him to rip the sheen off of three spirituals of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Sweet Little Jesus Boy and Were You There When They Crucified My Lord, because, as you said, I do think audiences that we commonly perform for, largely white liberal elite audiences, um, you know, they hear these major key songs and, you know, there's a certain beauty to it, but they don't- they don't go even one layer deeper-

Helga Davis: Not one.

Davóne Tines: -and think, where- hmm, and think where did this come from? Why-why is this here? Why does somebody need to say, you know, swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home? And I-- I've just thought, these are suicide notes. These are people at the end of their existence, at the hand of somebody else saying, Lord, come take me.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm. But do you think-

Davóne Tines: And we're gonna-- Yeah.

Helga Davis: -do you think they hear it? And this is- this is where we differ. Okay. I went and pulled this out. So this is my autobiography of Frederick Douglass, narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. And-and I-I just wanna read this to you for a second. "The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow slaves were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods for miles around reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. To those songs, I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Songs still follow me to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the North, to find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart, and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears."

And so, yes, Davóne, you are having that experience, but the people listening, I fear too often hear this-this idea of the happy slave.

Davóne Tines: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And that they are not slaveholders, right? [laughs] As you're saying, uh, it's-it's a hard thing.

Davóne Tines: Yes. And when I say I haven't figured it out yet, I say, I mean that I continually realize that more and more deeply that, "Okay, I can have my own engagement of emotion. I can have my catharsis, I can connect to my ancestral lineage, but what does it mean to do that in front of these people?"

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And two things, one about this past week, and then another about looking forward. This past week I was in Cincinnati to sing John Adams' The Wound-Dresser.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And it's a piece that I'd been kind of expected to sing, um, as someone who's sung a lot of Adams music. And-and I've taken a while to get around to it because I realized I didn't- I didn't know how to get into it. It's the poetry of Walt Whitman during the Civil War, him taking care of wounded soldiers, and then perhaps having pretty complicated, if not semi-predatorial relationships with them. But I didn't know exactly how to square myself with this piece. Is this the voice that I wanted to speak through?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: This-this white man doing these things. And I-I haven't figured my interpretation for that piece out completely, but where I settled on had to deal with what does it mean for me? And the way that I could engage it is saying, "I'm here to hopefully point out your wounds that are maybe not physical-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -but psychological," the reciprocal trauma that you hold based on the traumas of what your ancestors have done and your cohort continues to do. And me speaking this song is me trying to call out all of the brokenness and the woundedness I see looking around this audience.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And as-as this is a-a continual journey, walking towards hopefully being overt about what's going on in this- in this white gaze, it was a lot to stand and-and experience. And I went into it saying, "Okay, this is how I'm gonna go about it." You know, it's like you have these wounds, you're crushed head, you're, you know, a rotting thigh, all these explicit words, you know, and saying, you know, your-your crushed ego, your rotting personhood because of what you will not face.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: I was emotional during the piece, but it didn't come completely to the surface until I had left after the first bow.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: And that's when I almost started crying-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -because it felt like I was the man pushing a boulder up a hill-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Davóne Tines: -and trying to point these things out. And no matter how much I tried to clearly enunciate or layout this piece, it wasn't gonna get accepted in the breadth of the experience that I had putting into it. And that was overwhelming, the feeling of not having really done anything. And also, what I'm more interested in talking about right now, is the people that did the harm, whose hand was on that trigger, on that noose, whose hand was signing that paper, that red lined, because in order for us to hopefully move somewhere, those things had to be called out. I continue to grapple with it because I don't know if it's completely my job.

Helga Davis: What I feel, Davóne, is that it's not your job or my job to fix everything, but it is your job and my job to do what we can, right where our feet are. I look forward to seeing you and being with you wherever we can be. Thank you.

Davóne Tines: I can't wait.

Helga Davis: That was my conversation with opera singer, Davóne Tines. I'm Helga Davis. If you want more of these conversations, subscribe for free wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a rating and share with a friend. And don't forget to follow me @hel.gadavis on Instagram. Helga: The Armory Conversations, is a co-production of WNYC Studios and Park Avenue Armory. The show is produced by Krystal Hawes-Dressler, with help from Darian Suggs and myself. Our technical producer is Sapir Rosenblatt. Original music by Meshell Ndegeocello and Jason Moran. Special thanks to Alex Ambrose. Avery Willis Hoffman is our executive producer. Citi and Bloomberg Philanthropies are the Armory's 2021 season sponsors.

And now, the CODA.

[music]

[00:40:19] [END OF AUDIO]

 

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