The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
Mann Center for the Performing Arts
Congo Square
2007 Grantee
$80,000
As part of its 2007 summer series, The Mann Center for the Performing Arts will present “Congo Square,” a cross-cultural musical collaboration between Wynton Marsalis and the Ghanaian drum master Yacub Addy. “Congo Square” will honor and explore the memory of the public square in New Orleans where, from the mid-1700’s to the late 1800’s, slaves gathered on Sunday afternoons to perform African songs and dances, heralding the birth of American jazz at the turn of the century. “Congo Square” will feature Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Yacub Addy with his ensemble Odadaa!
Originally founded as the summer home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Mann Center for the Performing Arts is the only outdoor cultural arts venue in the Philadelphia region and one of the largest of its kind in the nation. Each summer, the Mann Center presents a diverse range of popular, classical, and contemporary musical, theatrical, operatic, dance, and cinematic programs. http://www.manncenter.org/
Yacub Addy, photo by Frank Stewart