The Grenchus Foundation @ Mélissa Laveaux Video #2~ David Rubenstein 360 Atrium: Lincoln Center

2022 Spring Arts Season:

Women’s History Month

The Grenchus Foundation @ Mélissa Laveaux Video #2- David Rubenstein Atrium/Hall

@France Rocks Festival: Mélissa Laveaux + Delgres@ Atrium 360 - David Rubenstein Atrium/Hall (2018)

Atrium 360°

Special Tribute to Lincoln Center & 360 David Rubenstein Atrium

Given we are still in the middle of a pandemic, we will be releasing some of our recorded pieces from the past, that we have never released before! While Atrium 360 ~ David Rubenstein Hall is still closed we will be sharing some of the performances we experienced and enjoyed there …

Enjoy!

Mélissa Laveaux

After the releasing the exquisite Radyo Siwèl in 2018, Mélissa Laveaux has returned with a fourth studio album : Mama Forgot Her Name Was Miracle: a spiritual, poetic and highly emancipatory disc. If the rituals and models we have inherited are sometimes lacking, outdated or perhaps even evolving backwards, we are free to innovate, to defect!

In Mama Forgot Her Name Was Miracle, Mélissa Laveaux rewilds the lullaby by summoning powerful voices from the ether, from another time, from Audre Lorde to the Goddess Lilith, to create a very novel pantheon of mythologies.

Like an archivist, documenting the struggle for feminist and social justice, like a ferrywoman tying different epochs together, Mélissa Laveaux invokes a community of heroines that History has deliberately forgotten or cast aside to the margins. Many archetypes whose talent, gull, engagement, resilience and free will make up an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the musician. From one song to the next, one might meet the ikes of Harriet Tubman, Jackie Shane, Audre Lorde, Helen Stephens, mother of demons Lilith, Pope Joan (the Papessa of Visconti), the pirate Ching Shih, writers Alice Walker, James Baldwin, artists Faith Ringgold, Ana Mendieta and even poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs...

In Mama Forgot Her Name Was Miracle, Mélissa Laveaux’s political poetry and her folk-blues groove are elevated by the gifts of creativity, joy, beauty, metamorphosis or even intuition. For us and for herself as well, Mélissa reignites, as the storyteller emerging out of the deep waters, a miraculous vital force, which, despite appearances, can never entirely be stomped out.

Alternative. Modern. Subversive. Re-imagining the space occupied by legends means to effect change in the present.

For more on Melissa’s music and bio go HERE

The France Rocks Festival highlights the most cutting-edge French electro, jazz, world, contemporary, pop, and rock artists. Opening this soulful double-bill filled with Creole spirit is singer-songwriter and guitarist Mélissa Laveaux, who will fill the Atrium with her sunny, melody-driven music at the intersection of folk, indie pop, and blues. Born in Canada to Haitian parents and now based in France, Laveaux’s latest project explores her Creole ancestry adding Haitian kompa guitar, calypso, and soca to the mix and giving her rootsy sophistication a definitive—and delectable—Caribbean twist.

For the second part of the evening, Delgres, a French trio with Caribbean roots that travels the old route between Guadeloupe and New Orleans, takes the stage. Led by guitarist and vocalist Pascal Danae—who has performed alongside artists like Harry Belafonte, Neneh Cherry, Peter Gabriel, Gilberto Gil, Youssou N'Dour, and Ayo—Delgres gets people moving with their intoxicating blend of Creole music, West African rhythms, rock, and Delta blues.

Presented in collaboration with The Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Bureau Export, and the France Rocks Festival

To make a donation to The Grenchus Foundation to support our Arts Programming, go HERE