1 audio poem
“H & L Express: A Barber/Beauty Establishment, a Sound Poem Septet”
Composed and Arranged by Janice Lowe
Performed by Janice Lowe & Namaroon
(a sound adaptation of “H & L Express: A Barber/Beauty Establishment by Janice Lowe)
Note about the work:
This piece was spurred by my interview with Rev. Thomas Linton. In our conversation, the minister, barbershop owner and civil rights strategist, related the events of “Bloody Tuesday,” including the tear gassing of students on church grounds in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Demonstrators gathered to protest segregated conditions at the city’s new courthouse and federal building in 1964. Rev. Linton’s photographic recall of voices and situations inspired the layering of voices, instruments and shifting speakers.
Janice Lowe is a multidisciplinary pianist-poet based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work involves composing sound-text collage, musical theater and creating music for plays in her collaborations with librettists, poets and performance artists. She is the author of Leaving CLE poems of nomadic dispersal and SWAM. Her musical Lil Budda, text by Stephanie L. Jones, was presented at the National Alliance for Musical Theater Festival of New Musicals. Along with Tyehimba Jess and Yahdon Israel, Lowe is a co-Creative Capital awardee for the development of a stage version of Jess's Pulitzer Prize-awarded collection, Olio. Lowe has taught MultiMedia Composition at Rutgers University and at Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program. She holds an MFA in Musical Theater Composition from New York University. Lowe is a co-founder of the Dark Room Collective. The song cycle version of Leaving CLE, a recording by Janice Lowe & Namaroon, is the band’s debut release. She is a resident music director of youth theater at White Bird Productions.