World Premiere of SONGS IN FLIGHT Comes to The Met Next Thursday

In 2019, Cornell University started "Freedom on the Move," a database of "runaway ads" collected from early newspapers in the United States. These ads, placed by enslavers, preserve snapshots of more than 30,000 enslaved people who took their fate into their own hands, liberating themselves from a cruel, ugly cycle whose effects ripple to this day.

"Freedom on the Move" inspired composer Shawn Okpebholo and Duke University professor and poet Dr. Tsitsi Ella Jaji to bring these individual stories to life in Songs in Flight, making its world premiere on Thursday, January 12 at 7 p.m. in The Met's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.

Additional material curated and performed by Grammy- and MacArthur Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens, poet Crystal Simone Smith, and poet and Pulitzer Prize-winner Tyehimba Jess will contextualize and respond to the database's primary source materials.

Rhiannon Giddens, singer and multi-instrumentalist
Shawn Okpebholo, composer
Karen Slack, soprano
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Will Liverman, baritone
Howard Watkins, piano

Conceived and commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries.