September 20, 2025
11am – 5pm
Yale University
Harkness Hall's Sudler Recital Hall
100 Wall Street
New Haven, CT, USA
Homegrown Dialogues: Womanist Perspectives on Spirit, Sound, and Sustainability is a one-day symposium featuring a live musical performance of and panel discussions about Andromeda Turre's 2024 album From the Earth, featuring Turre (a vocalist, environmental advocate, and composer), members of her ensemble, scholars, and activists promoting African American and Indigenous cultural traditions in the arts, public education, and spiritual practices. “Homegrown Dialogues” foregrounds the connections between the invocation of these holistic knowledge traditions, ecological sustainability, and expressive culture in Turre's project and the generations-old traditions of African American women's community stewardship. As Turre’s collaborator Dr. Jifunza Wright-Carter says in Turre’s composition “Grandmother’s Permission,” “who the soil would speak to is the women who are tied to the Earth and therefore tied to this ancient way of [knowing] we’re all connected.”
Raised within the legacy of jazz’s foremost Innovators - immersed in the presence of legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Ray Charles, and Wynton Marsalis - Andromeda Turre absorbed invaluable insights into jazz’s artistry, observing their mastery firsthand from birth. As the daughter of trombonist Steve Turre and cellist Akua Dixon, this lineage not only informs her artistry but also provides a foundation from which she redefines boundaries, bridging heritage with innovation. Educated at The Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music, Turre developed a voice uniquely her own, seamlessly integrating classical, contemporary, and theatrical frameworks into jazz, reshaping the genre to engage with its modern context.
This symposium is convened by Dr. Mark Lomanno, an esteemed ethnomusicologist, jazz historian, and pianist whose work critically examines the intersections between artistic performance, academic study, and sustainable community-building.
Free and open to the public.
The event will be livestreamed.
Speakers and performers:
• Chelsea Baratz
• Richie Goods
• Omi Osun Joni Jones
• Gene Lake
• Zaccai Curtis
• Mark Lomanno
• Kameelah Martin
• Betty Neals
• Drew Tucker
• Andromeda Turre
• Steve Turre
• Aja Burrell Wood
• Jifunza Wright-Carter
Sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s Religion, Ecology, and Expressive Culture Initiative.