Tonight, Leyla McCalla presents Breaking The Thermometer. This project is an immersive sonic journey through a half century of racial, social, and political unrest as it explores the legacy of Radio Haiti—the first radio station to report in Haitian Kreyòl, the voice of the people—and the journalists who risked their lives to broadcast it.
Breaking The Thermometer combines original compositions and traditional Haitian tunes with historical broadcasts and contemporary interviews. McCalla’s performances here are captivating, fueled by rich, sophisticated melodic work and intoxicating Afro-Caribbean rhythms.
Leyla McCalla
Composer, Cellist
Sheila Anozier Choreographer & Performer
Shawn Myers
Markus Schwartz
Pete Olynciw
Drummer & Percussionist
Drummer & Percussionist
Bassist
Nahum Zdybel Guitarist
Thank you for joining us!
In 2017, I was commissioned by Duke Performances at Duke University to create a multimedia theatrical performance inspired by the archives of Radio Haiti housed at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. My principal collaborator, Director Kiyoko McCrae, and I settled on the title Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever, pulling from a quote from Jean Leopold Dominique - the owner of Radio Haiti who was assassinated in 2000. Dominique likened the independent press to a thermometer; you can break the thermometer, but it won’t hide the fever.
After a few years of digesting audio recordings from the archive, guided by McCrae and archivist Laura Wagner, I started to imagine how my life story, the story of Radio Haiti and the story of HaitiUS relations could be connected through song in one album. While many of the songs on the album are inspired by the listening that I have done in the archive, much of the album is deeply self-reflective – integrating experiences that I have had navigating life as a child both in the US and Haiti, my journey in claiming my Haitian-American identity and understanding the experiences, sacrifices and challenges overcome by my immigrant relatives in establishing roots in the United States. The songs on Breaking the Thermometer live on a spectrum that honor the fire that ignited the Haitian revolution and the hope embodied by Haitian journalists who put their lives on the line to bring truth to light. In many ways, this is my most personal work to date but more importantly, it is a call for all of us to reckon with the greater movements for political freedom and human rights worldwide.
Combining original compositions and traditional Haitian tunes with historical broadcasts and contemporary interviews, Leyla McCalla’s remarkable new album, Breaking The Thermometer, offers an immersive sonic journey through a half century of racial, social, and political unrest as it explores the legacy of Radio Haiti—the first radio station to report in Haitian Kreyòl, the voice of the people—and the journalists who risked their lives to broadcast it. McCalla’s performances here are captivating, fueled by rich, sophisticated melodic work and intoxicating Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and the juxtaposition of voices—English and Kreyòl, personal and political, anecdotal and journalistic—is similarly entrancing, raising the dead while shining a light on the
enduring spirit of the Haitian people. McCalla isn’t just some detached observer, though; she writes with great insight and introspection on the album, grappling with memory, identity, and her own experiences as a Haitian-American woman, unraveling layers of marginalization and generations of repression and resolve in search of a clearer vision of herself and her role as an artist. The result is at once a work of radical performance art, historical scholarship, and personal memoir, a wide-ranging and powerful meditation on family and democracy and free expression that couldn’t have arrived at a more timely moment.
Born in New York City to a pair of Haitian emigrants and activists, McCalla developed an early fascination with the country and its culture thanks in part to the time she spent visiting her grandmother there as a child. After moving to Ghana for two years and later graduating from NYU, McCalla eventually drifted south to New Orleans, where she planned to make a living playing cello on the streets of the French Quarter. Her dedication to illuminating the Black roots of American culture eventually led her to the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and after two years touring and recording with the GRAMMY Award-winning group, she left to pursue her own career as a solo artist. In 2014, she generated considerable buzz with her critically acclaimed debut, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes, which prompted The New York Times to rave that “her voice is disarmingly natural, and her settings are elegantly succinct.” Two more similarly celebrated releases followed, 2016’s A Day For The Hunter, A Day For The Prey and 2019’s Capitalist Blues, which yielded even more glowing reviews and profiles, as did her 2019 debut with Our Native Daughters, a collaborative project featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, and Allison Russell.
Sheila Anozier is a Haitian-American multidisciplinary artist combining dance, song, and visual art into her work. Sheila has performed in venues around the world including Ha Noi Opera House, & White Palace
Convention Center in Vietnam, Ageha in Tokyo, Japan, Nuits
Atypiques de Langon in France, Montreal International Jazz festival in Canada, Vollos festival in Greece, The Hague Holland dance festival in the Netherlands, and the Altstdtherbst Festival in Germany. New York performances include Lincoln Center “Out of Doors,” The Joyce Theatre, Town Hall, Dance Theatre Workshop, The Kitchen, Joe’s Pub, SOBs, Prospect Park Bandshell, Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, and BRIC. Anozier is creator and artistic director of Vwa Zansèt - a full-length theatrical production based on folkloric and Vodou songs of Haiti. She also serves as choreographer for Brave New World Repertory Theatre and is on faculty at Mark Morris Dance Center. It is with the support and inspiration of master teacher, Pat Hall, that she has found her freedom and voice in dance.
Award-winning drummer, composer, and band leader Shawn Myers currently tours nationally and internationally with Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Leyla McCalla, while maintaining an active performing schedule with many other artists in the San Francisco Bay area where he resides. Myers has performed with many national and international luminaries, including Evan Christopher, Nduduzo Makhathini, Ed Petersen, Roland Guerin and Kenny Werner. His drum and percussion mentors include Billy Hart, Jamey Haddad, Damas “Fanfan” Louis, and various drummers/ensembles throughout Haiti, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
Grammy-nominated percussionist, recording artist and educator Markus Schwartz has devoted more than thirty years to learning the wealth and complexity of traditional Haitian religious music, traveling deeply throughout the Haitian countryside to learn Vodou drumming at the source. A “first-call” percussionist on the New York / Haitian music scene, Markus’ discography includes over 25 recordings to date, as well as touring the globe with a diverse array of artists from multiple genres. Schwartz has lectured and presented widely on Haitian music at many institutions, including Harvard University, The Museum of World Culture (Gothenburg, Sweden), The American Museum of Natural History and The Brooklyn Museum.
Since moving to New Orleans in 2014, Long Island born bassist Pete Olynciw has focused his musical viewpoint in the crescent city. He has been lucky to learn and play with musicians in styles from New Orleans, and influenced by its position as the northernmost city of the Caribbean — from New Orleans Traditional Jazz, Funk and Rhythm & Blues to Afro-Caribbean styles from Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad, Martinique, and beyond. Olynciw currently performs with Anti-Records artist, Leyla McCalla, in addition to both playing and leading groups around New Orleans.
Nahum Thelonious Zdybel is a New Orleans-based guitarist, improviser and composer, who restlessly shifts roles between innovative explorer of improvised musics, creative indie rock sideman, and ardent revivalist of early jazz styles and repertoire. Attracted to musical settings that are intimate and sincere, Zdybel deploys a playful, hyper-sensitive approach to re-imagine material from disparate musical traditions as baffling combustions of spontaneity and subtle cleverness. Correspondingly at home amongst jazz tunes, free improvisations, original works, and early 20th-century american music, Zdybel is an inventive improviser who regards with equal fondness and irreverence his relationship with early jazz, hardcore punk, and unstructured improvisation.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.
Harlem Stage’s Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem’s cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas.
For nearly 40 years our singular mission has been to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. We provide opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color, make performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduce children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts.
We fulfill our mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities we serve.
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