PaviElle Presents: "The SOVEREIGN Suite": An evening of music featuring Queen Drea and PaviElle French

Doors at 7:00p.m. | Show at 9:00p.m. | 21+

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The Current is pleased to offer a ticket giveaway to this concert. Enter by noon (CDT) on Tuesday, March 26 for a chance to win a pair of passes to this concert. TWO (2) winners will receive two guest list spots to Sovereign Suite on April 26.

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About the Show

PaviElle French has curated a night of music alongside a stellar group of her fellow friends, musicians, and artists including Queen Drea, Ted Godbout, Tiyo Siyolo, Nick Dodd, Deevo Dee, and Sean McPherson, in celebration of the work that went into and came out of, creating the SOVEREIGN Series, directly in response to both the recent pandemic and civil unrest, beginning in 2020. This original music that PaviElle intends to share speaks to her experience in the work that she has done in the community within her artist-led residency in partnership with the American Composer Forum, TruArtSpeaks, Walker-West Music Academy, Purple Playground, The Schubert Club, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and a host of ultra-talented artists in the Twin Cities (22-24). These works that PaviElle will perform, were both commissions also supported by both PaviElle's Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and The National Education Association. (21-23). This new music steeped in soulful musicality, imagination, and Afro-Futuruism, speaks to PaviElle's personal and introspective journey over these past four years, and she hopes this music will inspire people to do their own inner work, to find/reconnect with their purpose, and to define freedom and liberation for themselves.

This special evening will commence with featuring the brilliant works of sound alchemist, and composer, Queen Drea, and then will feature PaviElle's two most recent compositions, SOVEREIGN (2021), and The SOVEREIGN Suite (2023)!

PaviElle

PaviElle French is an Emmy Award-winning (2014), interdisciplinary artist/educator, who is from Rondo - a historically Black neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is a recipient of the 2023 Mark Award for Social Justice/Impact Track of the Year, “Redemption,” is an American Composer Forum Artist in Residence (2022-24); a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow (2021-23); a McKnight Artist Fellow (2020); and a Sage Award for Dance and Choreography recipient (2016).

PaviElle is known for such works as – A Requiem for Zula (2018) written in celebration of her Mother’s life; Sands of Time (2021) with The SPCO (commissioned by The Sands Family); a self-produced album called SOVEREIGN (2020); The SOVEREIGN Suite (2022) commissioned by The Schubert Club in connection with PaviElle’s Artist in Residence with The American Composer Forum (22-24); and has most recently released The SOVEREIGN Suite Video filmed by Peter Myers, and Soundtrack in December of 2023. PaviElle is finishing up both her ACF Residency (2022-24), and Jerome Artist Fellowship (2021-23). She is currently working with a stellar team of educators, toward a curriculum, based on her work through her SOVEREIGN Series. For more info, please check out: www.paviellefrench.com.

Queen Drea

Queen Drea, a 2022 McKnight Composers Fellow, is a sound alchemist, mixing sonic potions laced with looped vocals, jagged rhythms, and found sounds. She has designed for Pillsbury House, Penumbra, and the Minnesota Children’s Theaters, dance companies, BrotherHood Dance, and Ananya Dance Theater.

Queen has created her own interdisciplinary work about depression in the Black community, a music and movement piece titled “From Black Wombs” about two sisters who have lost their parents in the revolutionary war against white supremacy, and a four-movement piece about an African creator goddess named Mawu (Lisa), associated with the Sun and Moon in African Dahomey mythology.

"I make worlds with my compositions. Glitchy vocals, guttural cries, scratchy sounds, ear-piercing ground loops, and off-kilter rhythms are what I do. Everything is intentional, yet improvisational in nature. If my compositions invoke visceral responses in the listener, then I’ve done my job."