The Lady Sings the Blues -- and Gospel and Jazz (Feb. 23 -- 28)

In celebration of America’s Black History Month, Janice Harrington and her Trio -- Dylan Vaughn, Rick Cotton and Tommie Harris – traveled to Israel for a series of performances, workshops, and multi-media presentations. Janice and the trio performed at an event hosted by the Deputy Chief of Mission and Mrs. Luis Moreno, which included an audience of cultural specialists, academics, journalists and students from the Argov Fellows in Leadership diplomacy. Janice’s rendition of slave songs, blues, jazz and popular music, captivated the audience, which joined in singing.

Janice’s other performances included a multimedia workshop on African-American history with music and song, which included themes of slavery and the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. for members of the Bahalachin - Ethiopian Jewish Heritage Center’s Ensemble. Janice and the Trio also performed at the American Center in Jerusalem for a group of 12th grade students whose school is one of the few in Jerusalem that integrates religious and non-religious youth.

Janice and her trio also performed with the Hed Big Band and rocked the Hed Club in south Tel Aviv with a mix of blues, gospel, and jazz classics in a resounding celebration of Black History Month. Janice also gave a presentation on the history of African-Americans to the students of the Kiryat Yam Music Conservatory in the north of Israel and performed with the youth choir there. In all of the group’s musical performances, Janice offered detailed explanations of how each musical development was a manifestation of the cultural and social spirit of the African-American experience.