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George Elliott Clarke & D.D. Jackson
Africadian poet/playwright & NYC jazz composer/pianist
Africadian poet/playwright & NYC jazz composer/pianist
Jazz composer/pianist D.D. Jackson plays a selection of songs from two chamber operas (“Quebecite” and “Trudeau: Long March/Shining Path”) performed with RIT singers ('BeBopera'), followed by George Elliott Clarke performing from his poetry and other writings ('BeBopera Too').
Clarke: E. J. Pratt Professor of Canadian literature at University of Toronto, George Elliott Clarke is a 7th generation African-Canadian, born in Nova Scotia, descended from the Black Loyalist community of Three Mile Plains who emigrated north before the War of 1812. An award-winning poet, playwright, novelist and librettist, he is author of six books of poetry, including Execution Poems (2001 Governor General's Award) and the blistering and defiant poems of Black (2006). His verse novel, Whylah Falls — described as “one rich vaudeville opera” — inspired an acclaimed CBC-Radio drama, a stage play and a feature film, “One Heart Broken into Song.” Of his poems in Blue (2001), Clarke has written: “I craved to draft lyrics that would pour out like pentecostal fire—pell mell, scorching, bright, loud: a poetics of arson.” His honors include a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Nova Scotia's Portia White Prize, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellowship Prize, and the Toronto Black Film & Video Network's Outstanding Screenwriter Award (2000). Jackson: Canadian born, NYC-based D.D. Jackson is an award-winning jazz pianist/composer whose work spans 12 CDs, including Serenity Song, Suite for New York (a meditation on 9/11) and Sigame. Jackson earned a Bachelor of Music with High Distinction in Classical Piano from Indiana University and a Master of Music in Jazz from the Manhattan School of Music. His CDs have been nominated for six Juno Awards, and his RCA solo disc “. . . so far” won in 2000. He performs around the world, appearing and recording with some of the most distinguished names in jazz, and, an accomplished classical pianist, recently released a recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. He writes a column for Downbeat magazine, “Living Jazz,” maintains the related D.D. Jackson Living Jazz Podcast, and is a member of the Manhattan Producers Alliance.
