On the Power of Cultural Exchanges
Jennifer Kessler, Executive Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), writes about the concert organized at Reid Hall with the Institute for Ideas and Imagination and Columbia Global Paris Center on November 13, 2024.
Last night, in a performance hall off a small street in Paris, we witnessed magic. To access the hall, guests eagerly waited outside the large blue stable-like door of a nondescript building. Once inside, we walked into a stunning courtyard full of trees and flowers, surrounded by old buildings with tall windows reflecting the night sky. This perfect, quiet oasis nestled in the middle of the bustling city is Reid Hall, home to the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.
The hall was to the left of the courtyard, and in entering its beautiful chambers, guests were seated like passengers on a plane for a journey through the many sounds and ideas of Afrodiasporic contemporary music. This event was dreamt up by composer and scholar George Lewis, who is also the Artistic Director International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). As a Fellow this year at Columbia’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination, he suggested to the directors that ICE come perform a program of “Composing While Black,” inspired by his recent book of the same name and co-written with Harald Kisiedu. The directors thankfully said yes.
