The EOS Project presents “Rising Seed,” Saturday, November 5, at the BMC. The 7 p.m. concert will feature Junko Watanabe, soprano; Susan Dedell, piano; Greg Diehl, violin; Heather Sommerlad, violin; Ashleigh Gordon, viola; and Julie Carew, cello.

Performed works will include Tania Leon’s Oh Yemanja; Jessie Montgomery’s Source Code; Daniel Bernard Roumain’s I made up my mind not to move; Adolphus Hailstork’s Two Romances for Viola and Piano; and Florence Price’s Dawn’s Awakening, Hold Fast to Dreams, We Have Tomorrow.

As BMC Artist-in-Residence Ashleigh Gordon, who curated the concert, explains, “Drawing inspiration from Zimbabwean author Matshona Dhliwayo’s reminder: ‘When people try to bury you, remind yourself you are a seed,’ Rising Seed explores lineage, memory, and resilience. Through music and audience participation, the program pays homage to Yoruban water goddesses, Black inspiration, ancestral love, and the charge to build a hopeful future.”

About the EOS Project
What do great composers look like? Where do they come from? How we answer these questions is the focus of the EOS (Educate • Open • Strengthen) Project. Created at the BMC in the spring of 2020, the Project’s mission is to open new doors and allow our community to explore what and who we’ve been missing—namely, composers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color as well as those who identify as anything other than cis male.

The ability to write complex, evocative musical works belongs to no one race or gender, a fact that has long been obscured by the traditional canon. But there is an extensive list of gifted composers—from contemporaries of the acknowledged “great composers” to living, emerging artists today—who have created powerful works of depth and grace for as long as music has existed. EOS, under the direction of Heather Sommerlad, and with the participation of BMC faculty and area musicians, seeks out this unjustly neglected music to study and perform in a spirit of social justice and a desire to add to our understanding of great art.