AMERICAN MAVERICKS PROJECT VOL. 1: QUEST to Have Premiere in Brooklyn
The program will feature Piano Broadsides I. A Poet is Not a Jukebox, II. Nocturne for Zasha, III.
The American Mavericks Project will present the NY premiere of American Mavericks Project Vl. 1: Quest-an interdisciplinary celebration of trailblazing Black Arts Movement poetry and the legacy of AMP founder Chelsea Randall's great uncle, the poet and editor Dudley Randall, through new piano music.
The concert will take place on Sunday, June 14th, 2026, at the Dweck Center, Central Public Library, Brooklyn, NY. (The concert was rescheduled from January 14, 2026 due to inclement weather.) Chelsea Randall will perform six solo piano pieces commissioned for AMP by esteemed composers Carolyn Yarnell, Adolphus Hailstork, Joyce Solomon Moorman, Anthony R. Green, Regina Harris Baiocchi and Jeremiah Evans, based on the poetry of Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Naomi Long Madgett and Dudley Randall, who platformed these poets via his Detroit-based Broadside Press.
Special guest Melba Joyce Boyd, Michigan's Poet Laureate and Dudley Randall's biographer, and Jon Randall, Dudley's nephew and a Broadside Press poet, will read the paired poems alongside Chelsea's performances. The program will feature Piano Broadsides I. A Poet is Not a Jukebox, II. Nocturne for Zasha, III. Shape of the Invisible (2023), by Regina Harris Baiocchi, Don Quixote (Quest) (2024), by Adolphus Hailstork, When We Come (2024), by Joyce Solomon Moorman, Under a Soprano Sky (2025), by Anthony R. Green, Sky Diving (2025), by Carolyn Yarnell, and Lyrical Cartography (2025), by Jeremiah Evans. Quest is dedicated to the memory of Nikki Giovanni. The premiere of Quest is supported in part by the Brooklyn Arts Council's Brooklyn Arts Fund.
The world premiere of Quest was held at the DuSable Museum in Chicago on March 20th, in partnership with the Haiku Festival, with special guest poets Regina Harris Baiocchi (Haiku Fest founder) and Michael Covenant Wilson. Following the NY premiere, Quest will be presented in Philadelphia, Boston and Michigan and California. A series of interviews with the commissioned composers is featured as part of the AMP Talks interview series on AMP's website, and workshops featuring the commissioned works will take place at educational institutions across the US in fall 2026.
The American Mavericks Project (AMP) is dedicated to piano music by Black American composers 1900-present, with emphasis on 21st century composers, through performances, commissions, education and research
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