Raise a Genius Baby

Nonesuch Records releases an album from longtime friends and collaborators Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) and Nico Muhly, Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music. Peter Pears comprises nine songs written by the duo plus three gamelan transcriptions by ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee that inspired the songs. Bartlett and Muhly perform the Peter Pears music on May 24 at New York City’s (Le) Poisson Rouge (LPR) as part of its tenth anniversary festival, June 6 at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, and June 8 at LSO St Luke’s in London presented by the Barbican.

Songs of Our Native Daughters gathers together kindred musicians Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell in song and sisterhood to communicate with their forebears. Drawing on and reclaiming early minstrelsy and banjo music, these musicians reclaim, recast, and spotlight the often unheard and untold history of their ancestors, whose stories remain vital and alive today.

The material on Songs of Our Native Daughters - written and sung in various combinations - is inspired by New World slave narratives, discrimination and how it has shaped our American experience, as well as musicians such as Haitian troubadour Althiery Dorval and Mississippi Hill Country string player Sid Hemphill, and more.