Voices of Change: Black Women In Music

Exhibition Dates: December 5, 2011 - January 28, 2012

Opening Reception: December 9, 5 - 7pm

Voices of Change: Black Women in Music explores the lives of three influential African-American female performers and their impact on 20th Century popular music: gospel legend and civil rights activist Mahalia Jackson, pioneer composer, arranger and jazz trombonist Melba Liston, and the genre-traversing singer Mavis Staples.

Their stories chronicle early black music entrepreneurship, the uniting force of music during the civil rights movement, and the effect of African-American vernacular musics - especially jazz, gospel and soul - on the global landscape. Above all, Voices of Change showcases these women's determination to create music in historical moments when female musicians of color were often outnumbered and disregarded, opening the door for generations of artists to come.

With audio, video, artifacts, and ephemera from the Center for Black Music Research and the Fashion Columbia Study Collection, Voices of Change: Black Women in Music was curated and organized by the Hokin Project, a student-run collaboration of the Arts, Entertainment & Media Management Department (AEMM) and Student Affairs/ Department of Exhibitions and Performance Spaces (DEPS) of Columbia College Chicago.

Academic Partners: Hokin Project, Center for Black Music Research, DEPS

Exhibition Contact: Robert Blandford, rblandford@colum.edu