FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Media Contact:
Hilary Pierce, Guest Curator
COLAB: Art and Music from Baltimore and Beyond | An Audible Art Exhibition
artcollectorsathenaeum@gmail.com
Phone: (443) 547-7550
Eubie Blake Cultural Center is honored to host an unprecedented art exhibition and musical collaboration:
COLAB: Art and Music from Baltimore and Beyond | An Audible Art Exhibition
Location: 847 N. Howard St. Baltimore, MD 21201
Gallery Hours: Wednesday–Friday, 1–6 PM; Saturday, 11 AM–3 PM
PRESS RECEPTION: May 17, 2025 at 5 PM
WEBSITE: www.eubieblake.org
Derek Price, Executive Director, Eubie Blake Cultural Center
Email: press@eubieblake.org Phone: (410) 225-3130
COLAB: Art and Music from Baltimore and Beyond | An Audible Art Exhibition features original works by 36 celebrated visual artists spanning the mid-20th century to the present—30 percent of whom are based in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. region—and is accompanied by music selections in a wide array of genres, curated by 18 distinguished musicians, vocalists, producers, and DJs.
Visitors are invited to use their cell phones to access QR-coded content and bring their Bluetooth audio devices to experience an immersive, audible art exhibition that engages the audience in interpreting visual art through music.
The COLAB exhibition is conceived and curated by Guest Curator, Hilary Pierce, a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD; President of Art Collector’s Athenaeum, and a founding Curator for The Petrucci Family Foundation of African American Art.
“This exhibition showcases the depth and diversity of African American art over the past 50 years, across a wide range of mediums and styles,” says Pierce. It includes works by the late Samella Lewis and Sam Gilliam, alongside celebrated Baltimore artists Joyce J. Scott and Megan Lewis. The exhibition also highlights emerging talent Ziggy Sayheed Moorehead—who held his first exhibition at age 17—showing alongside his mentor, acclaimed Baltimore photographer Devin Allen.
With world renowned trumpeter, educator and Music Curator, Sean Jones, COLAB is the synthesis of art and music. Our music collaborators contributed soundscapes that reflect and respond to the visual art on view, providing insight and commentary to see the work through sound. “Music is a powerful unifier, which makes the Eubie Blake Cultural Center—an anchor of Baltimore’s cultural legacy—the ideal venue for this multidimensional experience. We are honored to bring nationally recognized artists and musicians into dialogue with Baltimore’s vibrant creative community,” adds Pierce.
Selected works in the exhibition will be available for acquisition with a portion of the proceeds benefitting the Eubie Blake Cultural Center. Acquisitions: (443) 547-7550 or artcollectorsathenaeum@gmail.com
COLAB Music Collaborators:
The Music Curator for COLAB, Sean Jones, is a Professor of jazz at Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, a former member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Eubie Blake Cultural Center. The co-producer of the COLAB Spotify Playlist is Dmitre Powell a.k.a. DJ Meech, a professional DJ and a graduate of George Mason University. Marin Alsop, Music Director of The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2005-2021); Michele Blu is part of a Baltimore-based musical duo with her partner Bashi Rose, with performances grounded in improvisation and driven by creating sonic connections to ancient vitalities. Terri Lyne Carrington, drummer, composer, producer, and educator who has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock and Al Jarreau; Louis Cato, a singer, songwriter, producer the bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; Elizabeth Downing, singer, songwriter and performance artist, one fourth of the iconic Baltimore-based alternative band Lambs Eat Ivy, featured in Artforum and Interview magazine, and half of avant-folk, pop duo Curving Tooth; Claudia Gargiulo, Latin American Jazz, Folk and Tango vocalist, performing at the Kennedy Center and Lisner Auditorium, Washington DC; Lea Gilmore, internationally celebrated Baltimore-based Blues and Gospel vocalist. Steve Greenwell, Maryland native and former base player for the Baltimore-based pop band AR-15, now a song writer and producer/engineer/mixer working with other artists such as Niles Rodgers, Raphael Sadiq, Diane Birch, Joss Stone and Digable Planets; Darryl Harper, Jazz clarinet musician who toured with violinist Regina Carter in the U.S., Europe, South America and the Caribbean, currently holding the clarinet chair in pianist/composer Jason Moran’s tribute project James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters: From the Dancehall to the Battlefield, formerly an educator at St. Paul’s School, Baltimore, MD, now a Professor of Music at Amherst College; James Harp, student of The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins, current Artistic Director for The Maryland Opera and former organist for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Hill, Baltimore-based jazz pianist, composer and producer, studying at the Berklee School of Music, initially a hip hop artist who later mastered piano and composed music for The Oprah Winfrey Network, now an entrepreneur and regular performer at EBCC and An Die Musik, Marcus Miller, a musician, songwriter, and record producer who has been nominated for numerous Grammy Awards as a producer for Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn, Chaka Khan and Wayne Shorter, and won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for Luther Vandross' "Power of Love"; DJ Meech (Dmitre Powell) a Washington DC based DJ and musicologist graduate of George Mason University; Dianne Reeves is an award-winning Jazz Vocalist who first toured with Harry Belafonte and then signed with Blue Note in 1987 and that year her album, featuring Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, and Tony Williams, was nominated for a Grammy Award. She went on to win five Grammy Awards; Rashawn Ross is a trumpeter and arranger, a full-time member of The Dave Matthews Band, and has also performed with The Fugees, Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder, Questlove, Common, Ariana Grande, The 1975, and Lady Gaga; Joyce J. Scott is a multi-talented Baltimore icon, a singer and visual artist who performed in her recent BMA retrospective exhibit accompanied by jazz pianist Derrick Thompson and Lorraine Whittlesey; Neci Williams, is a legendary Baltimore DJ, first emerging on the alt radio airwaves with WHFS and was a regular DJ in the alternative and dance music scene in Baltimore in the 1980’s and 90’s, spinning records to packed crowds at popular dance clubs like Cignal and The Hippo.
COLAB featured Visual Artists:
Kibibi Ajanku (Baltimore, MD)
Curlee Raven Holton
Devin Allen (Baltimore, MD)
Candace Hunter
Benny Andrews
Jeffrey Kent (Baltimore, MD)
Gregory Bannister (Baltimore, MD)
Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence
Romare Bearden
Jacob Lawrence
Barbara Bullock
Megan Lewis (Baltimore, MD)
Elizabeth Catlett (Washington, DC)
Nate Lewis
Sonya Clark (Washington, DC)
Samella Lewis
Kevin Cole
Tom Miller (Baltimore, MD)
Willie Cole
Ziggy Sayheed Morehead (Baltimore, MD)
Eldzier Cortor
Charly Palmer
Dr. David Driskell (Hyattsville, MD)
Wendell Poindexter (Frederick, MD)
Landis Expandis (Baltimore, MD)
Steve Prince
Michael Gibson
Alison Saar
Sam Gilliam (Washington, DC)
Joyce J. Scott (Baltimore, MD)
Allison Janae Hamilton
Nelson Stevens
Gerald Hawkes (Baltimore, MD)
Tokie Rome Taylor
Robin Holder
Richard Watson
Selected works for the COLAB exhibition are on loan from the private collections of George Ciscle, Curlee Raven Holton, Bill and Paula Alice Mitchell, Hilary Pierce, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, and from Galerie Myrtis and Goya Contemporary Gallery both in Baltimore, Maryland. 4
About the Eubie Blake Cultural Center:
The Eubie Blake Cultural Center is dedicated to preserving and celebrating African American art, history, and culture. Through art exhibitions, performances, and educational programs, the center provides a platform for artists and scholars to share their work and engage with the community. The Eubie Blake Cultural Center is a 501C3 non-profit organization. Funding and in-kind contributions for the COLAB exhibition are provided by private donors, Art Collector’s Athenaeum, Hotel Revival and Maryland State Arts Council.