This past year we saw some positive change happen among many commitments to achieving greater equity (including ACF). Now, we’re seeing some of that enthusiasm wane while also experiencing strong backlash to these movements. 

How do we persist and resist the inertia pulling us back into our flawed systems and exclusionary practices? What does real follow through on the commitments of this past year look like? For our own work, how do we ensure artists are being invited, included, and presented in an equitable way?

We invite you to join us for our next Artist Equity Summit on September 10-11, 2021 to learn how we as artists, arts advocates, and arts supporters can be an effective part of the follow through. Join us virtually or watch the videos on icareifyoulisten.tv later.

This event will be on a monitored zoom platform with accessibility support; we will make every effort to provide an inclusive space for curious colleagues looking to learn together.

Why is ACF organizing this event?

As an organization committed to supporting and advocating for individuals and groups creating music today, we host gatherings that center the music creator and advocate for equitable collaboration and engagement with the artists. Sharing our national platform, ACF seeks to bring our circles together and build relationships, share experiences, and strengthen our work through dialogue and artmaking. ACF’s Artist Equity Summit is an annual public convening in St. Paul, Minnesota. Watch our first gathering in 2019 here.

SCHEDULE (All Times are in Central Time)

Friday, September 10, 2021 (Live-streamed)

4:30 PM | Welcome & ACF’s Report on its Commitment to Equity 

Vanessa Rose / President & CEO, American Composers Forum

Garrett McQueen / Executive Producer of TRILLOQUY and Chair, ACF Equity Committee

5:00 PM | Panel 1: Labels and Language: What does your commitment actually mean? 

Kathy Mouacheupao / Executive Director, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council

Lady Midnight / Multidisciplinary Artist, Vocalist, Songwriter, Educator and Community Leader

Julian Condie / Associate Vice President, Innocent Technologies, LLC

Facilitated by Lee Bynum / Vice President for Impact, Minnesota Opera

7:00 PM | Live Concert: ACF Awardees (this event will be in person only)

Location: Mears Park Bandshell, Downtown St. Paul, MN

Leyna Papach, ACF MECA Artist

Tony the Scribe, ACF MECA Artist

Carlisle Evans Peck, ACF MECA Artist

Kashimana, ACF In Common Artist

This concert is generously supported by the St. Paul Downtown Alliance. 

Saturday, September 11, 2021 (Livestreamed)

8:45 AM | YallaDrum! Ensemble Performance

9:30 AM | Panel 2: Follow-Through: Moving Through the Backlash 

Tish Jones / Poet; Cultural Producer; Organizer; Founder & Executive Director, TruArtSpeaks

Khaldoun Samman / Professor of Sociology, Macalester College; Lead Drum Instructor, YallaDrum! Ensemble

Kathryn Haddad / Executive/Artistic Director, New Arab American Theater Works

Facilitated by Marianne Combs / Independent Journalist, Managing News Editor for Racial Reckoning: The Arc of Justice

11:00 AM | Land Acknowledgement and Music Presentation by Jada Brown / artist

11:30 AM | Panel 3: What We Learn from Indigenous Cultures

Jessica Bissett Perea (Dena’ina) / Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis

Nina Sun Eidsheim / Professor of Musicology; Founder and Director of the PEER Lab (UCLA)

Sharon M. Day (Ojibwe) / Executive Director, Indigenous People’s Task Force

Sir Curtis Kirby III (Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and African American descent) / Director of the Ikidowin Acting Ensemble, Indigenous People’s Task Force

Facilitated by Brent Michael Davids (Mohican/Munsee) / Composer; Co-Director of Lenape Center

This event is produced by Claim Our Space. Saturday’s activities will be streamed from Saint Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN).

We are grateful for the support of Saint Paul’s STAR program for this event. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

SCHEDULE (All Times are in Central Time)

Friday, September 10, 2021 (Live-streamed)

4:30 PM | Welcome & ACF’s Report on its Commitment to Equity 

Vanessa Rose / President & CEO, American Composers Forum

Garrett McQueen / Executive Producer of TRILLOQUY and Chair, ACF Equity Committee

5:00 PM | Panel 1: Labels and Language: What does your commitment actually mean? 

Kathy Mouacheupao / Executive Director, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council

Lady Midnight / Multidisciplinary Artist, Vocalist, Songwriter, Educator and Community Leader

Julian Condie / Associate Vice President, Innocent Technologies, LLC

Facilitated by Lee Bynum / Vice President for Impact, Minnesota Opera

7:00 PM | Live Concert: ACF Awardees (this event will be in person only)

Location: Mears Park Bandshell, Downtown St. Paul, MN

Leyna Papach, ACF MECA Artist

Tony the Scribe, ACF MECA Artist

Carlisle Evans Peck, ACF MECA Artist

Kashimana, ACF In Common Artist

This concert is generously supported by the St. Paul Downtown Alliance. 

Saturday, September 11, 2021 (Livestreamed)

8:45 AM | YallaDrum! Ensemble Performance

9:30 AM | Panel 2: Follow-Through: Moving Through the Backlash 

Tish Jones / Poet; Cultural Producer; Organizer; Founder & Executive Director, TruArtSpeaks

Khaldoun Samman / Professor of Sociology, Macalester College; Lead Drum Instructor, YallaDrum! Ensemble

Kathryn Haddad / Executive/Artistic Director, New Arab American Theater Works

Facilitated by Marianne Combs / Independent Journalist, Managing News Editor for Racial Reckoning: The Arc of Justice

11:00 AM | Land Acknowledgement and Music Presentation by Jada Brown / artist

11:30 AM | Panel 3: What We Learn from Indigenous Cultures

Jessica Bissett Perea (Dena’ina) / Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis

Nina Sun Eidsheim / Professor of Musicology; Founder and Director of the PEER Lab (UCLA)

Sharon M. Day (Ojibwe) / Executive Director, Indigenous People’s Task Force

Sir Curtis Kirby III (Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and African American descent) / Director of the Ikidowin Acting Ensemble, Indigenous People’s Task Force

Facilitated by Brent Michael Davids (Mohican/Munsee) / Composer; Co-Director of Lenape Center

Vanessa Rose

Vanessa Rose, ACF President & CEO

Read Vanessa’s Bio Here

Dameun Strange

Dameun Strange, ACF Director of Community and Belonging

Read Dameun’s Bio Here

 

Torrie Allen, Arts Midwest President & CEO

Torrie Allen has served as president and CEO of Arts Midwest since 2019. He previously led philanthropic activity at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and, before that, was chief officer of development and marketing at Alaska Public Media. From 2006 to 2012, he was artistic and executive director of Anchorage Opera — becoming the first African American to lead a professional opera company in the Circumpolar North. Under his leadership, the company produced several Alaska premieres, including The Grapes of Wrath and Eugene Onegin. Before joining Anchorage Opera, Allen directed the National Patrons Council at Americans for the Arts. He has appeared as a keynote speaker at numerous conferences and as a guest lecturer at schools including University of Pennsylvania, Yale, and University of Michigan. Allen serves on the boards of National Arts Strategies, VocalEssence, NIVA Foundation, and AIR Institute. Before pursuing arts administration, Allen enjoyed an international career as a concert and opera singer. He holds degrees from UCLA and the Boston Conservatory, and is a fellow of National Arts Strategies’ Chief Executive Program through Harvard Business School.

Lee Bynum, VP Impact, Minnesota Opera

Lee Bynum is the Vice President of Impact at Minnesota Opera, where he oversees education, equity, access, and civic engagement initiatives. He also is a Senior Consultant with The Inclusion Firm, a national consulting practice that focuses on developing inclusive strategies for organizational change. Prior to relocating to the Twin Cities, Bynum served as the Associate Director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where he administered diversity and inclusion grants for colleges, universities, and cultural institutions. Previously, he was the Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University and spent a year as a Visiting Scholar at Caritas Francis Hsu College in Hong Kong. Bynum has served on the boards of The Dream Unfinished Orchestra, Black Feminist Project, TakeRoot Justice, Diaspora Community Services, OOPS MN, and as the Founding Artistic Director of the Harmony Theatre Company in New York City. An historian of race and performance, Bynum received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University and has an active career as a librettist and composer of opera and musical theatre.

Sun Yung Shin, writer and activist

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin is a poet and collaborative artist. Her fourth book of poems, The Wet Hex, will be published by Coffee House Press in 2022. She is the editor of three prose anthologies: What We Hunger For: Refugee & Immigrant Stories about Food & Family; A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota; Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption; as well as the author of two books for children. She is the maker behind Tyger Tyger Jewelry, which is sold at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center and online on IG and tygertygerstudio.com. She is also a community healing practitioner & bodyworker, creative writing teacher, and equity consultant. With poet Su Hwang she co-directs Poetry Asylum in Minneapolis.

Kate Beane, PhD (Flandreau Santee Sioux)
Public Historian

Bio: Coming Soon

Adriana Rimpel, “Lady Midnight,” multidisciplinary artist, vocalist, songwriter, educator and community leader

Lady Midnight is the artistic persona of Adriana Rimpel, the ethereal vocalist and performance artist who draws upon her multidisciplinary background in visual art, dance and Afro-caribbean-indigenous roots to create work that timelessly reflects our collective lives. The City Pages named Lady Midnight Best Twin Cities Vocalist of 2017 and named her highly anticipated debut album Death Before Mourning Best Album of 2020. As Lady Midnight, she has performed at The Red Rocks Amphitheatre, scored a silent film for visual artist Kara Walker and performed with internationally acclaimed icons Common, Moby, Andra Day, and Aloe Blacc, among others. Recently, she has stepped into the realm of curating virtual reality performances as she continues to hold space for Black, Indigenous, people of color, refugee and immigrant youth within her creative residencies. Lady Midnight has dedicated her life to using the arts as a power for change and confronting trauma.

Friday, September 10, 2021

7:00 PM | Live Concert: ACF Awardees (this event will be in person only)

Mears Park, Lowertown Saint Paul

Artists:

Leyna Papach, ACF MECA Artist

Tony the Scribe, ACF MECA Artist

Carlisle Evans Peck, ACF MECA Artist

Kashimana, ACF In Common Artist

ACF’s Minnesota Emerging Composers Award (now Minnesota Music Creator Award) is funded by a generous grant from the Jerome Foundation. ACF’s In Common program was funded by Otto Bremer Trust. For more information on ACF’s programs, visit our website. 

This event is supported by the Saint Paul Downtown Alliance, as part of its #WelcomeBackStPL campaign to safely celebrate reopening and welcome people back downtown. From outdoor trivia and art installations to pop-up events and concerts, the Downtown Alliance is partnering with downtown institutions, businesses, artists, and musicians to host more than 300 events and activations through the fall. Follow the Downtown Alliance on Facebook and Instagram or check out the hashtag #WelcomeBackStPL for updates. For the full calendar of events, visit WelcomeBackStPL.com.

 

ACF offers these resources for your continuing equity journey

 

MN History Center Exhibit: https://www.mnhs.org/historycenter/activities/museum/our-home

Mizna: https://mizna.org/about/

MN Science Museum’s Race Exhibit: https://new.smm.org/exhibits-experiences/race

ACF’s monthly Study Group and events: https://composersforum.org/events/#newsletter-block

Native Governance Center: https://nativegov.org/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/

Sun Yung Shin / author-editor:

https://shop.mnhs.org/collections/browse-mnhs-press-titles/products/good-time-truth

https://shop.mnhs.org/products/what-we-hunger-0

Honor Tax Toolkit: http://www.honortax.org/toolkit.html

ACF’s artist stories: icareifyoulisten.com

Innocent Technologies

Adam Davis-McGee / documentarian – produced In Protest VR