North Star - Kwame Daniels
North Star is a live music and spoken word performance inspired by the speeches of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Conceived and developed by Kwame Daniels, the piece blended music, poetry, and visuals and saw an incredible array of artists all share one stage, including Grammy winning multi-instrumentalist and DJ Kaidi Tatham, and winning composer Ivor Novello.
For this project, Jennifer John created original vocal arrangements based on Kwame’s compositions, and directed the choir through rehearsals. The show, premiring in Ireland, was then picked up and run as a 3 week show in collaboration with the Irish Arts Centre in New York.
“Jennifer’s process is as innovative as her output. She arrived with a well-researched palette of vocal colours, but left space for discovery in the studio. Her ability to decode a director’s vision, translate it into musical architecture, and iterate swiftly under production pressures was invaluable”
- Kwame Daniels, Creative Director of North Star