THE AMERICAN SLAVE COAST: LIVE Set for Musical Reading at Symphony Space

The American Slave Coast: Live, an electrifying live musical reading from Ned and Constance Sublette's powerful new book The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry, takes place at Symphony Space on Friday, October 28 (8 pm).

An exciting group of cutting-edge actors, vocalists, and musicians - including renowned film director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married), funk/R&B goddess Nona Hendryx of Labelle, acclaimed spoken word artist Carl Hancock Rux, Native American country singer Kandia Crazy Horse, and jazz/soul vocalist Lezlie Harrison - will bring the book's many voices to life. The cast will interact with a live musical ensemble directed by renowned New Orleans composer and bandleader Donald Harrison, along with projected imagery.

Produced by Danny Kapilian, this urgent work reframes our shared history at a particularly dramatic moment in our American lives. The event takes place in the Peter Jay Sharpe Theatre. Tickets are $65, $47, and $35; $55, $40, and $30 for Members; $25 for those 30 and under, available at www.symphonyspace.org.

Published on October 1, 2015, the source book, The American Slave Coast (Lawrence Hill Books), was the #1 African-American History title on Amazon.com for two months. In August 2016, it won the American Book Award. An audiobook is currently in production by Tantor, and a paperback release is scheduled for April 2017. According to the Sublettes' research, enslaved African-Americans served not only as laborers, but as merchandise and collateral. In a land without silver, gold, or trustworthy paper money, their children and their children's children into perpetuity functioned as the basis of money and credit, paying interest to slaveowners in the form of newborns. Telling the brutal story of how the slavery industry made the reproductive labor of the people it referred to as "breeding women" essential to the young country's expansion, The American Slave Coast presents even the most familiar events and figures in a revealing new light. Reviewing The American Slave Coast, The Guardian wrote, "The Sublettes offer an economic history and theory of slavery that is blunt in its assessment, unassailable in its argument and accessible to a general reader," while Kirkus Reviews praised it as "a massive story of impressive research." Counterpunch called it "one of the best history books ever written about the United States." The American Slave Coast: Live is a performance collaboration that translates the argument of the book into a powerful concert work with two principal artists: Ned Sublette directing the spoken language, and Donald Harrison directing the music. It combines the storytelling intensity of the book's history lesson with the emotional power of live instrumental music in a thought-provoking, evening-length experience that respects the gravity, complexity, and social urgency of the book's subject.

NED SUBLETTE is the author of the best-selling The World that Made New Orleans (the final chapter of which centered on the figure of Donald Harrison) and Cuba and Its Music, as well as being a veteran producer for the public radio program Afropop Worldwide and a well-known singer, composer, and lecturer.

Sublette's collaborator, the legendary New Orleans-born and -based composer/bandleader Donald HarrisON, will direct a small ensemble in counterpoint with the multi-voiced reading of the text. Harrison is known internationally as a leading alto saxophonist, and as a master practitioner of Afro-New Orleans cultural traditions. Aspects of his life and music are embodied in two characters on David Simon's HBO series Treme, in which he also appears in nine episodes as himself.

Jonathan Demme is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Demme rose to prominence in the 1980s with Melvin and Howard, Swing Shift, Something Wild, Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, and Married to the Mob. He became best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. He later directed the acclaimed films Philadelphia and Rachel Getting Married.

Nona Hendryx is an American vocalist, record producer, songwriter, musician, author, and actress. Hendryx is known for her work as a solo artist as well as for being one-third of the trio Labelle, who had a hit with "Lady Marmalade." Her music has ranged from soul, funk, and R&B to hard rock, new wave, and new-age. Her family's last name was originally spelled with an "i"; she is a cousin to American musician Jimi Hendrix.

Carl Hancock Rux is an award winning playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, performer, theater director and recording artist. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Doris Duke Awards for New Works, the Doris Duke Charitable Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts Prize and the Alpert Award in the Arts

The American Slave Coast: Live is the culminating event of Symphony Space's PROJECT AMERICANA, an election-year exploration of our shared culture and history, created by Symphony Space's Artistic Director, Andrew Byrne. For more information on Project Americana, visit www.symphonyspace.org.

Symphony Space traces its beginnings to a free marathon concert, Wall to Wall Bach, held in 1978 and organized by co-founders Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller. The music marathon then drew thousands of visitors and has since become one of the organization's signature events. Today Symphony Space presents more than 600 events each season, including music, dance, theater, film, and literary readings. Some of its

best known programs include Selected Shorts, a reading of short stories by stars of stage and screen, and one of the most popular series on public radio; National Theatre in HD,broadcasting the best of British theatre to cinemas around the world; and Just Kidding, one of the most talked about family entertainment series around town. Uptown Showdown has been called "New York's best comedy series" by New York Magazine. For more information, visit symphonyspace.org.

Symphony Space is located at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street. Box office hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 1 pm - 6 pm, open two hours prior to performances and events. Tickets can also be purchased through www.symphonyspace.org, or by calling 212/864-5400.