Wednesday Folk Traditions
Nzingas's Daughters
Traditional African Music and Post-Slavery Spirituals
June 25 at 6:30pm

HADLEY, MA. —The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will continue its 27nd season of Wednesday Folk Traditions on June 25, with Nzinga’s Daughters, a female ensemble who will perform traditional African songs, slavery spirituals, and narrative stories of escape through the Underground Railroad. The concert will be held in the Museum’s sunken garden beginning at 6:30 p.m., and picnicking on the grounds is welcome beginning at 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults and $2 for children 16 and under.

Nzinga’s Daughters include Gail Williams, Dayna Snell, Alison Johnson, Joanne James Richmond, Taffie Bentley, Lori M. Cabral and Donna Lee. They perform a cappella, with the accompaniment of percussion instruments only. Their songs and narratives highlight the stories of captured Africans, slaves, free blacks and abolitionists. Through their music, Nzinga’s Daughters revere children, honor ancestors, and teach of the progress made by people of African descent in America. Nzinga’s Daughters have mastered a performance style that blends entertainment with education, songs with stories. With soulful energy, they bring to life the struggles as well as the hopes of the people of the African diaspora. “The troupe electrifies with mesmerizing rhythms and magical storytelling,” states the Hometown Journal.

Nzinga’s Daughters is named after the 17th-Century African warrior queen, Nzinga, who reigned for forty years in Ndongo-Matamba. During Nzinga’s leadership, which coincided with the European slave trade in Africa, none of her subjects were sold into slavery. The strength and leadership represented by Nzinga is something founding member Gail Williams wished to draw upon as she created an all-female band in 1994. Williams desired to perform as well as preserve music centered around the oral history of the African American experience of slavery and freedom. These songs and stories have personal meaning for Williams, who has researched her own family’s history and can trace her ancestors back to the plantation they labored on in Virginia.

Nzinga’s Daughters, based in Plainville, Connecticut, has appeared in many regional events, such as: The Underground Railroad Project at Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA; Hartford’s First Night Concert; the Nomad Music Festival; Hartford’s Summer in the City Concerts; and WorldFest. In addition, Nzinga’s Daughters are a popular feature at Kwanzaa, Martin Luther King Day, Juneteenth, Black History Month and Women’s History Month celebrations in the Hartford regional area each year.

The 27th season of the WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS concert series continues on July 2, 2008, with The Goodwin Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Choir, and throughout the summer featuring music from River City Slim and the Zydeco Hogs, Afro-Semitic Experience, MacTalla Mor, and MarKamusic.

Wednesday Folk Traditions performances are funded, in part, by grants from: The Marion I. And Otto C. Kohler Memorial Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts; The Hadley Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency; The New England States Touring Program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment of the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies; and with support from many local businesses.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North. The Museum is open for guided tours Saturday through Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and by appointment. For further information about the tours and the WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS series, call the Museum at (413) 584-4699, or view the website at http://www.pphmuseum.org" www.pphmuseum.org.