THE LANGSTON HUGHES PROJECT
A MULTI-MEDIA CONCERT OF AN EPIC POEM

FEATURING THE RON MCCURDY QUARTET

This show is a music, spoken word, and multi-media production by Dr. Ron McCurdy (Music Professor at University of Southern California and member of the Grammy Foundation) and is based on Langston Hughes’ masterwork, “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz”.  This epic poem serves as Hughes’ social commentary for the struggle for freedom and equality for Africans and African Americans in the 1960s.  While it was written more than 50 years ago, the words continue to be uniquely relevant and timely today, given the #Black Lives Matter movement. 

The show can be performed with a quartet or a full Symphony and allows for celebrity narrators to participate.  In the past, such notables as Ice-T, Blair Underwood, and Malcolm Jamal-Warner have been featured guest narrators.  Or, you can nominate a local celebrity from your community to be a co-narrator of the piece with Dr. McCurdy. 

The production offers myriad opportunities for educational and community outreach, including master classes, community talk-backs, and a local Poetry Slam whose winners have their poems set to music by Dr. McCurdy and get to open the show.  

A virtual version of the program is now available and includes a live Zoom introduction by Dr. McCurdy and a Zoom Q&A with him and members of the audience.

In addition to his work at USC and with the Grammy Foundation and performing The Langston Hughes Project throughout the world, Dr. McCurdy has performed with a host of legendary jazz artists, including Wynton Marsalis, Joe Williams, Rosemary Clooney, Terence Blanchard, Leslie Uggams, Arturo Sandoval, Diane Schuur, Ramsey Lewis, Mercer Ellington, Dr. Billy Taylor, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, and Dianne Reeves.