American Songbook - PAD Showcase SESSION

Welcome to Week Two of the PAD Showcase SESSION! While these artists bring distinct styles, together they create a rich tapestry of the American Songbook.

A song as a sonic and literary manifestation is life’s soundscape, a unique, cathartic memento as well as a powerful political tool. A song can also be an important historical text. A person’s testimonio (testimony), life views, triumphs, aphorisms, and struggles can be expressed in sounds and song lyrics . In this way, songs transmit ways of knowing and theorizing about life. It can also be viewed as alternative ways of creating knowledge. All the artists you will see will express different knowledges. Embodied by lived experience we now get to enjoy their stories.

—Martha Gonzalez

Meet the host: Martha Gonzalez

Photo credit: Pablo Aguilar

Martha Gonzalez is a Chicana artivista (artist/activist) musician, feminist music theorist and Associate Professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at Scripps/Claremont College. Born and raised in Boyle Heights Gonzalez has received various fellowships including a Fulbright Garcia-Robles, Ford Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson, USA Fellowship as well as the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship (2022).

Her academic interests have been fueled by her own musicianship as a singer/songwriter and percussionist for Grammy Award winning band Quetzal. The relevance of Quetzal’s music and lyrics have been noted in a range of publications, from dissertations to scholarly books.  Quetzal’s latest recording “Puentes Sonoros” (Sonic Bridges) was released on Smithsonian Folkways in the fall of 2020. Gonzalez along with her partner Quetzal Flores has been instrumental in catalyzing the transnational dialogue between Chicanx/Latinx communities in the U.S and Jarocho communities in Veracruz, Mexico and have been active in implementing the collective songwriting method in correctional facilities throughout the U.S. Most recently, Gonzalez’s tarima (stomp box) and zapateado dance shoes were acquired by the National Museum of American History and are on permanent display in the “One Nation Many Voices” exhibit. Gonzalez’s first manuscript Chican@ Artivistas: Music, Community, and Transborder Tactics in East Los Angeles was published by the University of Texas Press in 2020 and translated into the Spanish Language in 2024 by Interpec. 

Meet the Artists

Guy Mendilow Ensemble

Photo credit: Elizabeth Friar

Guy Mendilow Ensemble (GME) produces live, original multimedia performances and thoughtful residencies. Through riveting scores, narration blending memoir and poetry, and theatrical projections, GME explores real-world tales of choices people make in times of personal or societal change, especially unexpected grace in upheaval. 

Led by composer/educator/facilitator Guy Mendilow, GME is a cutting-edge collaboration of international musicians, composers, visual artists, writers and theatrical designers from the Middle East, Europe, South and North America now living mainly in Boston, MA and New York, NY.

PUBLIQuartet

Photo credit: Ryan Scherb

Applauded by The Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music,” and by The New Yorker as “independent-minded,” multi-GRAMMY®-nominated PUBLIQuartet is an improvising string quartet whose repertoire blends genres and highlights American multiculturalism. PUBLIQuartet rose on the music scene as winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild New Music/New Places award, and in 2019 garnered Chamber Music America’s prestigious Visionary Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. PQ’s genre-bending programs range from newly commissioned pieces to re-imaginations of classical works featuring open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic of the traditional string quartet. 

Eunbi Kim

Photo credit: Maria Baranova

Pianist Eunbi Kim (‘eu’ sounds like the oo in “book" and “look” – easy.) creates intimate experiences that transcend the conventions of the piano recital. A winner of the 2023 Astral Artists National Competition, her credits include solo programs at the Kennedy Center, a concert-meditation performance at Lincoln Center, and a TEDx Talk. She has been noted for her “creative curiosity and fearless experimentation” (New York Public Radio). 

Kim’s recent album debuted at #2 on Billboard Classical Charts. Titled “It Feels Like,” the album deals with themes of childhood, family and memory, and features world premiere recordings of works written for her by Angélica Negrón, Pauchi Sasaki, Sophia Jani, and Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). Drawing from the album and its themes, she created a 4-night performance and conversation series as an Artist-in-Residence at WNYC/WQXR’s The Greene Space.

Mali Irene

Photo courtesy of the artist

Mali Irene (aka Malesha Taylor Browning) is a versatile vocalist, improviser, and composer blending classical, jazz, world, and electronic music from Atlanta. Mali is an American Composers Orchestra Earshot CoLaboratory Fellow and a National Black Arts Festival Horizon Award recipient. Known as the voice inside Charmaine Minniefield’s Praise House Project, she also performs with Yvette Jackson’s Radio Opera Workshop, including Left Behind at the 66th Biennale di Venezia.

Her concert credits include solo performances with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Boston Pops, American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, and Atlanta Opera. She has also performed in Lord of the Rings in concert with John Williams’ tour and as Annie in Porgy and Bess on Amazon Prime Video.

Allan Harris and the Cross That River Band

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Allan Harris, the Brooklyn-born, Harlem-based vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and bandleader, is a celebrated jazz artist. Praised by the Miami Herald for his warmth, rhythm, and elegance, he has released 14 recordings as a leader and earned numerous accolades.

His honors include three New York Nightlife Awards for Outstanding Jazz Vocalist, DownBeat’s Rising Star Jazz Vocalist, and third place in the 2022 Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition. He’s also a two-time Hot House Jazz Magazine Best Male Jazz Vocalist and a recipient of France’s Palmares Award.

Described by The New York Times as "a protean talent," Harris is a dynamic performer whose rich vocals and masterful phrasing span jazz, blues, the American Songbook, and original compositions.

The Urban Renewal Project

Photo credit: Eddy Navarro

The Urban Renewal Project is a sixteen-piece collective known for its genre-bending original music combining elements of jazz, hiphop and vintage soul, and its explosive live performances that have captivated audiences from SXSW to the Java Jazz Festival. Building off the success of their single Don't Ask Y featuring Camp Lo and a subsequent tour with the rap luminaries, as well as a placement on Netflix's The Circle, the group is preparing their next full-length release, but with recent events rendering large ensemble recording and live performances impossible, the musicians have spent the past year adapting to more intimate, home studio-oriented creative projects, including new multimedia concept Pᴏssᴇ Cᴏᴍɪᴛᴀᴛᴠs as well as session work for several forthcoming releases with producer Marlon "Chordz" Barrow (Ty Dolla $ign, BJ the Chicago Kid).