COLLAGE: MUSIC & POETRY - Cavani String Quartet

COLLAGE: MUSIC & POETRY
                   Cavani String Quartet and Mwatabu Okantah, poet

“By simply bringing together these connections in such an evocative way, “Collage” taught me to
introspect about how I experience and direct emotions, leading me toward possibilities for
empathy and human connection in ways I couldn’t have envisioned.” ~The Hudson Review

COLLAGE: Music & Poetry is a multi -discipline performance experience which takes the audience
on an electrifying journey through spoken poetry woven in and around music. The members of the
Cavani Quartet in collaboration with poet Mwatabu Okantah since 1994, have inspired audiences to
deepen their understanding and appreciation of both music and the spoken word while
representing living history from the 18th through the 21st century. This unique fusion of chamber
music and poetry creates a new and larger experience, and serves to reach all audiences through
mind and heart. The Cavani Quartet has performed with poet Mwatabu Okantah at universities,
schools, and on cultural arts series throughout the United States. COLLAGE has received acclaim
as the intensely powerful convergence of two art forms which take their roots from both African
and European cultures. Originally conceived to introduce young audiences to the mediums of
chamber music and poetry, the program has been featured at the American Music Festival Creative
Writing Workshop in North Carolina, Chamber Music Society of Detroit, West Virginia University,
The Chamber Music America National Conference in New York, Occidental Concert Series in San
Francisco, Kent State University Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-Martin Luther King
Celebration 2021. A recent Cavani / Okantah performance received this accolade from a high
school teacher: “The Cavani Quartet with poet Mwatabu Okantah, a modern day griot, will move
the entire room with its beautiful and sorrowful mélange of cultures and history. Audience
members will leave wanting to be better human beings." The program is particularly meaningful
and exciting for people from all walks of life who like to think ‘outside the box’ and see limitless
possibilities for self-expression through music and the spoken word.

COLLAGE: MUSIC & POETRY
                              PROGRAM
Poetry:                              Music:

Mwatabu Okantah                           Antonin Dvorák

     Collage                              String Quartet Op. 96, “American”
                                                II. Lento

Langston Hughes
Montage of a Dream Deferred               Bèla Bartôk
          Dream Boogie                    String Quartet No. 4
                                                I. Allegro

           Parade                         String Quartet No. 4
                                                IV. Allegretto pizzicato

           Harlem                         String Quartet No. 4
                                                V. Allegro molto

           Good Morning                   Antonin Dvorák
                                          String Quartet Op. 96, “American”
                                               IV. Vivace ma non troppo

Mwatabu Okantah

from Guerrilla Dread: Griot Stylee   Jessie Montgomery, Strum

Homeboy                               Eric Gould, He Speaks in Shadows

Breakfast at the Ibis                 Merry Peckham, Breakfast at the Ibis

Saw an Old Woman                      Charles G. Washington, Midnight Child

Legacy                                Tommy E. Dorsey, Precious Lord

          FURTHER SELECTIONS TO BE ANNOUNCED FROM STAGE

Biographies
Mwatabu S. Okantah holds the BA in English and African Studies from Kent State University (1976) and the MA
in Creative Writing from the City College of New York (1982). Currently, he is an Assistant Professor and Poet in
Residence in the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University. He also serves as Director of the
Center of Pan-African Culture and the Study Abroad in Ghana Program. He has taught at Union College, The
Livingston College of Rutgers University, Cleveland State University and Lakeland Community College.

Okantah is the author of Afreeka Brass (1983), Collage (1984), Legacy: for Martin & Malcolm (1987), Cheikh Anta
Diop: Poem for the Living—published as a limited trilingual edition in English, French and Wolof (1997) and
Reconnecting Memories: Dreams No Longer Deferred (2004). Work has been anthologized in The Poet’s
Bookshelf: Contemporary Poets On Books That Shaped Their Art, Vol. 2 (2007), Gwendolyn Brooks and Working
Writers (2007), Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry for the 21st Century (2002), Journey to TimBookTu
(2001), The Second Set, Vol. 2 (1996) and Soul Looks Back In Wonder (1994). His latest work, Muntu Kuntu
Energy: New and Selected Poetry, was released by Chatter House Press in 2013.

As a performer, Mr. Okantah has worked in a variety of musical situations, including time as Griot for the Iroko
African Drum & Dance Society and in an ongoing collaboration with the Cavani String Quartet. He is the leader
of Muntu Kuntu Energy aka Baba Okantah and MKE. A spoken word and original music CD, Guerrilla Dread:
Griot Stylee, was released in 2014. To date, Mr. Okantah has appeared at diverse venues including Buffalo’s
Albright-Knox Museum, Merkin Concert Hall in NYC, Market Square Concert Series in Harrisburg, Cleveland
Museum of Art’s Nia Café, Cleveland Institute of Music Concert Series, Cleveland’s Sanaa and Ingenuity
Festivals, First Night Akron, Akron’s Annual African American Festival, Salem’s Zadok Street Art Festival, Kent
Heritage Festival, Detroit’s Broadside Poet’s Theatre, Hiram College, College of Wooster, Kelly Writer’s House at
the University of Pennsylvania, Paul Robeson Cultural Center at Penn State University, Gettysburg College, Knox
College, Southern Illinois University, University of Michigan and the MLK, Jr. Center at the University of
Kentucky. Baba Okantah lives in Akron, Ohio with his wife, Aminah, and their children.

Cavani String Quartet
Annie Fullard and Catherine Cosbey, Violins : Eric Wong, Viola and Kyle Price, Cello
Described by the Washington Post as “completely engrossing powerful and elegant” The Cavani Quartet has
dedicated its artistic life to communicating the joy of discovery in the service of some of the most powerful music
ever written. "Their artistic excellence, their generous spirit, and their fervent ambassadorship for great music
make them unique among America's greatest string quartets.” The Cavani Quartet continues its more than 30 year
journey maintaining an energetic balance between performing masterpieces by composers such as Mozart,
Beethoven and Bartok; collaborating with living composers such as Gabriela Lena Frank and Jessie Montgomery;
and creating new programming that joins music, poetry, and dance.The quartet continues to inspire and shape the
musical lives of the next generation through their acclaimed Art of Collaboration Seminar which emphasizes a
"team -work" approach to chamber music rehearsal techniques. The quartet’s more than thirty year legacy has
garnered impressive recognition including the Ohio Governors Award for the Arts, Musical America Magazine's
Young Artists of the Year, Naumburg Chamber Music Award, The Cleveland Quartet Award, and the ASCAP Award
for Adventurous Programming and the Guarneri Quartet Award Artistic Excellence. The Cavani Quartet has toured
throughout all fifty states, and internationally, performing at some of the worlds most prestigious festivals,
including The Perlman Music Program, The New World Symphony, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kniesel
Hall, Interlochen, Madeline Island, Chautauqua Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Encore Chamber Music.
Passionate advocates for arts education, the Cavani Quartet views the empathy and connectivity of chamber music
as metaphor for the kind of communication that we should strive for between races, cultures and nations.
cavanistringquartet.com