Emmy-award winning composer Laura Karpman’s Ask Your Mama sets Langston Hughes’ epic 1961 poem to music, bringing his vision to life in an exciting multi-media evening-length work for full orchestra and an array of soloists. Winner of two GRAMMYs (and nominated for a third), the show premiered to a sold-out Carnegie Hall and then took the Hollywood Bowl and Apollo Theater by storm. This unforgettable show has featured celebrated sopranos Jessye Norman, Angela Brown, and Janai Brugger, ?uestlove and Black Thought from The Roots, and the jazz world’s stunning Nnenna Freelon, among others.
Audiences are taken on an exhilarating journey that bursts the boundaries of time, place, and verbal expression to trace the currents and tributaries of cultural diasporas. It is a vivid sonic tapestry of hot jazz, German lieder, cha-cha, patriotic songs, post- bop, Middle Eastern music, Afro-Caribbean drumming, and more, and brings the worlds of technology and concert music together.