World AIDS Day Observance: “The HOMEGOING Concert—a sonic memorial”

Rothko Chapel

"loss. nothing. memorial: the HOMEGOING Concert—a sonic memorial" focuses on the impact of the AIDS crisis in Black communities in the United States between 1980-2005. This music honors fallen Black queer musicians, choir directors and singers. Songs performed are written to and about musicians, singers and choir directors from the Black church tradition, and Black queer musicians that were victims of the AIDS crisis. We sing songs to honor, to remember and to wish them well on their journey to otherwise and beyond. The Houston-debut performance will feature vocalists from Phillip Hall Singers, Hammond organist Abdul Hamid Robinson-Royal, percussionist Vernon Daniels and the William Grant Still String Quartet. Composer Ashon Crawley is a writer, artist and teacher. A professor of Religious Studies and African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, he is author of Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility and The Lonely Letters. He was a Yaddo fellow, a MacDowell interdisciplinary arts fellow, and a New City Arts Initiative Fellow. All his work is about otherwise possibility. Photo credit Benita Mayo.