Cut & Paste

The chorus specializes in music by African-Americans, from 19th century spirituals arranged for 120-voice chorus, to contemporary gospel and pieces by black composers. The melding of black-American and European classical styles is heard vividly in the path-breaking “Gospel Mass” by IN UNISON’s founding director, Robert Ray. We hear from chorus members Gwendolyn Wesley and Brittany Graham, and Ray reveals the origins of his opus. Its different flavors are heard in excerpts from performances by Morgan State University Choir with orchestra, Angeles Chorale, Chorus of the Medical School of Białystok(Poland) and a rehearsal of the mass by IN UNISON Chorus.

Syrhea Conoway isn’t a DJ, and  .”

 foregrounds his identity as a queer black man in America, and examines the complex social calculus he’s navigated as he earns literary accolades and is celebrated by traditionally white institutions.

We talk with Dino Taca and Adrian Gough, who ran the Upstairs Lounge in its final months, after a run that began in 1991. The Upstairs was home to various forms of underground electronic music.