Wisteria was first performed at the Columbia Museum of Art in April 2005. It has since been performed to critical acclaim throughout South Carolina and abroad. In 2006, Wisteria opened the prestigious Poetry International at the Royal Festival in London . The performance was the closing event for the Manchester Literature Festival that year. Wisteria was featured in a BBC Radio 3 documentary feature (45 mins.) which aired October 21, 2007.
Wisteria Company:
Kevin Simmonds (piano, tenor, composer), Valetta Brinson (soprano), Valerie Johnson (soprano), Celia Teasdel (mezzo soprano), Brian Mcqueen (baritone), Billy Coakley (tenor), Christopher Neely (viola), Nicole Neely (viola, piano), Alvoy Bryant (violin), James Miller (flute), Cora Phillips (cello) and Kwame Dawes (voice)
Program running time: 80 minutes
Personnel: 12
Technical Personnel: 1
About Composer Kevin Simmonds
K evin S immonds is a poet and musician from New Orleans . He studied at Vanderbilt University , Mills College , Middle Tennessee State University , and received the Ph.D. in music from the University of South Carolina , where he was an African American Professors Program Scholar, the Artistic Coordinator of the Center for Southern African-American Music, and the Composer-in-Residence of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. Dr. Simmonds has had stints as a conductor and artist/composer-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the University of California-Berkeley , Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture, and Bennett College . He recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Singapore . His music has been performed throughout the US , Japan and the Caribbean and his writings have appeared in American Scholar , FIELD , Massachusetts Review , Poetry , and Rhino , among others. He is a Cave Canem fellow and the Artistic Director of Tono International Arts Association, an arts presenter in northern Japan .