Keisha Hutchins: Going home

Sunday, March 26, 2017 @ 7:00pm

Ibrahim Theater @ International House Philadelphia  (3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia)

What is home? What is Blackness? 

Join vocalist and singer-songwriter Keisha Hutchins on Sunday, March 26 for a soaring artistic exploration of these themes. From arias to jazz to spirituals, Keisha and guest artists Lela Aisha Jones, Douglas Hirlinger, Ashley Phillips, and Neil Podgurski blend together a vibrant, thoughtful concert examining persistence and resistance, guiding the audience through a profound personal and historical roadmap that considers what it is to be Black in America. 

Keisha Hutchins. 

Classically trained at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory, Keisha has been exploring, blending, and bending genres from Carnegie Hall to the clubs of Philadelphia, and her sound today is a smooth, heady blend of folk, soul, and alt-country.  In addition to her first group, the trip-hop electronic artists Vanishing Peoples of the Earth, the soprano has performed with the Philadelphia Singers, the former resident choir of the Philadelphia Orchestra, for seven seasons, and has collaborated with artists as diverse as hip-hop producer Justin Gilmore of KRU records, dance music producer and DJ MacGuyver, New York composer Andrew Shapiro, and New Orleans composer and trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe.  Her eclectic talents extend offstage: she is a music educator, serving as the Lower School Music Teacher at Abington Friends School and has received the Leeway Foundation’s Art and Change grant for women who use their art to create social change. Keisha recently collaborated with dancer, choreographer and 2016 Pew Fellow, Lela Aisha Jones and her company Flyground, in the premiere of the company’s piece, Release Mourning Clearing, presented by Intercultural Journeys (2016).

Keisha’s debut solo album, Dedicated, moved the Philadelphia City Paper to name her one of its Great Unknown Artists in 2006.  Her latest album, Press Play, draws on a wide range of influences, creating a mesmerizing work that defies categorization.  

Interested in a deeper dive? Join Keisha Hutchins, Art Sanctuary Executive Director Valerie Gay, Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher, and Pew Fellow Lela Aisha Jones in conversation on March 23 at Art Sanctuary.  Moderated by Dr. Pia Deas, the women present a compelling, timely conversation about art, identity, and homeland. RSVP here. 

This event is free and open to the public, and is presented in partnership with Art Sanctuary.