Leyla McCalla
Adult $60/40/20 | Non-UR Student/Youth $10 | UR Credited Student - Free
Born in New York City to Haitian emigrants and activists, Leyla McCalla draws from her past and present – her music vibrates with three centuries of history and influences from around the globe. With a stunning mastery of cello, banjo, and guitar, and as a multilingual singer and songwriter, she produces a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. McCalla returns for her third year as Artist in Residence with University of Richmond’s Department of Music.
McCalla’s new album and fifth studio recording, Sun Without the Heat, is playful and full of joy while holding the pain and tension of transformation. Throughout Sun Without the Heat’s ten tracks, McCalla achieves a balance of heaviness and light with melodies and rhythms derived from various forms of Afro-diasporic music including Afrobeat, Ethiopian modalities, Brazilian Tropicalismo, and American folk and blues.
On Sun Without the Heat, McCalla draws lyrical inspiration from the writings of Black feminist Afrofuturist thinkers including Octavia Butler, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and adrienne maree brown. Like these authors, McCalla looks to songwriting as a way to increase faith and hope, encourage community thinking, and catalyze personal transformation. “Songwriting is a modality to tell the stories that need to be told,” she explains. “Sometimes these are painful stories to tell.”