Esperanza Spalding at Cal State LA

The Luckman Fine Arts Complex on the campus of Cal State LA will present Esperanza Spalding “Music With/In Me Past, Present and Future” on Thursday, Aug, 1, at 8 p.m.
Emphasizing simplicity and intimacy of her voice, bass, and songs, in this special configuration of two musicians and two dancers, Spaulding performs songs from all 8 of her previous albums, songs from current releases, plus a special-preview of her forthcoming project.
Esperanza Spalding (a.k.a. Irma Nejando) is a five time Grammy-winner trained and initiated in the North American (masculine), jazz lineage and tradition. Her work combines combinations of instrumental music, improvisation, singing, composition, poetry, dance, therapeutic research, storytelling, teaching, regenerative agriculture, urban land and artist-sanctuary custodianship. She has co-founded and currently serves as a lead curator for Primsid Inc.
Esperanza is continuing to collaborate and perform in new productions of “Iphigenia”, which is an opera written by Wayne Shorter. Spalding wrote the libretto and co-produced its 2021 and 2022 premieres. Spalding is currently developing a mockumentary and collaboration with bronte velez and the San Francisco Symphony and researching and developing liberation rituals in jazz and black dance. She is also continuing to collaborate with the Apothecary Lab and practitioners in various fields, such as sound, healing and cognition to help develop music with enhanced therapeutic potential.
Spalding leads multi-week performance, teaching, workshop and therapeutic-arts research through her dance company, Off Brand Odds and the Songwrights Apothecary Lab. Off Brand gOdds was co-founded by Antonio Brown.
Her newest installation “I love being Black/Quit saying I’m Blac,” opens in a the “near future,” and is commissioned and produced by institutions who do the work themselves of learning about, reaching out to, and offering comprehensive support of other (ancestored) artists.
Tickets range from $50 to $70. Call the Luckman Fine Arts Complex box office at (323) 3434-6600.