PLEASE NOTE THAT PROOF OF FULL VACCINATION IS REQUIRED TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, AND EVERYONE 2 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER MUST WEAR A MASK AT ALL TIMES WHILE IN THE BUILDING.
Be Steadwell is a queer pop composer, filmmaker, and storyteller, who composes her songs on stage using looping, vocal layering and beat boxing. Her original music features earnest lyricism, and affirming queer content. Her goal as a musician is to make other black girls, queers, introverts and weirdos feel seen and loved.
Toshi and Be have been collaborating creatively for 10 years, and this evening’s performance will feature a set by Steadwell, with Reagon joining in.
Livestream tickets will be available for select Symphony Space events. Please check back or contact [email protected] if you are interested in livestream tickets for a specific show.
Be Steadwell earned a BA in Black Studies from Oberlin College and an MFA in film from Howard University in 2014. Her thesis film Vow of Silence was screened in film festivals around the world, including Black Star, HBO's OutFest, The Schomburg Center ,and Inside Out Toronto.
In 2019, Be composed the music for The Alvin Ailey Dance Company's production of The Gone, and directed the musical A Letter to My Ex, which imagines a queer black woman's experience through the year of a big breakup. In 2021 Be released her latest album Succulent. In 2022, Be joined the cast of Octavia Butler’sParable of the Sower, an Opera by Toshi Reagon and Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon.
Toshi Reagon has been described as “a talented, versatile singer, songwriter and musician with a profound ear for sonic Americana—from folk to funk, from blues to rock” by critic/blogger Eva Yaa Asantewaa (InfiniteBody). “She masters each of these genres with vocal strategies that easily spiral and swoop from the expressively sinuous to the hard-charging, a combination of warmth and mischief.”
While her expansive career has landed her comfortably in residence at Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House and Madison Square Garden, you can just as easily find Toshi turning out a music festival, intimate venue or local club. Toshi finds home on any musical stage. Toshi has had the pleasure of working with Lenny Kravitz, Lizz Wright, Ani DiFranco, Carl Hancock Rux, Nona Hendryx, Pete Seeger, Chocolate Genius and many other amazing artists, including her favorite collaborator, her mom, Bernice Johnson Reagon.
Yaa Asantewaa writes, “Toshi knows the power of song to focus, unite and mobilize people. If you’ve been lucky enough to be in Toshi’s presence, you know you can’t walk away from her without feeling better about yourself as a human being. She aims for nothing less.”
Toshi has been the recipient of a NYFA award for Music Composition, The Black Lily Music and Film Festival Award for Outstanding Performance. She is a National Women’s History Month Honoree, and is the 2010 recipient of OutMusic’s Heritage Award.
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