Don’t call this visit to the radio studio by Claron McFadden and Claire Chevallier simply a ‘concert’. The temperamental soprano and specialist in historical keyboard instruments return to ‘les années folles’ on the trail of Ada Smith, alias ‘Bricktop’: the legendary, red- haired pioneer of Montmartre nightlife. Between 1924 and 1961, her nightclub grew into a melting pot where French artists and Afro-American musicians rubbed shoulders. For the latter, Paris was a safe haven far from the systematic racism in the US. As the Erard grand sends songs by Joplin, Porter, Ravel and Debussy over the airwaves, this musical talk show muses on loving and losing, the exciting combination of jazz and impressionism, and on Black artists who traded in their American nightmare for the Parisian dream. Director Luigi De Angelis transforms AMUZ into a meeting place where the past and present merge into a cocktail of memories and stories.
Program
Music by C. Porter, D. Reinhardt, M. Ravel, E. Satie, D. Ellington, S. Joplin, C. Debussy
Performers
Claron McFadden, soprano | Claire Chevallier, piano (Erard, 1920) | Luigi di Angelis, director & scenographer