on Freedom

So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.

"Presidential Suite: Eight Variations on Freedom" is the two time Grammy Award-winning album from composer Ted Nash and his Big Band. Featuring recordings of great speeches from leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and John F. Kennedy, as read by contemporary figures such as Glenn Close and Douglas Brinkley, each of the movements in Nash's composition respond to the themes and musical features of each speech, producing a creative and inspiring reflection on the idea of freedom.

Open and civil discourse has always been a tenant of democracy. Recent political events in the U.S. have reduced that discourse to a crude, gutter-level low that has left an alienated population in its wake, marginalized and left without a strong voice. From the time of the Civil War, protest music has provided counsel for vulnerable segments of society. With Meditations on Freedom saxophonist Noah Preminger adds his voice to the ranks of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" (Commodore, 1939), Charles Mingus' "Fables of Faubus" from Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959), Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam" from Nina Simone in Concert (Philips, 1964) and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra Not in Our Name (Verve, 2005).