Name: The Rhythm of Christylez Bacon
Start: 2023-12-10T00:00:00
Location: The George Washington Masonic National Memorial

Christylez Bacon

Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic Association

​The Rhythm of Christylez Bacon is a concert inspired by American composers that have embraced the point of musical intersection between different cultures throughout our country. We are honored to present Migrations in Rhythm: a Concerto for Beatbox and Rhyme with music by Evan Meier and lyrics and beats by Christylez Bacon, a GRAMMY-nominated Progressive Hip-Hop Artist based in Washington DC. The concerto provides a musical setting for Christylez Bacon's storytelling and virtuosic rhythmic explorations in the styles of  Hip-hop, Agbadza, ring shout, rumba, New Orleans jazz, funk, and Go-go. This program includes other works by two female composers. Valerie Coleman’s Umoja, Anthem of Unity is the Swahili word for "unity" and is the first day in the African American celebration of Kwanzaa and was first meant to be a simple family sing-along song. The concert concludes with Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1, her first full-scale composition and first symphony by a Black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra in 1933.  This work is inspired by both the Western classical tradition and Black musical idioms such as the Juba dance and spirituals. 