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Alicia Hall Moran

Artist-in-Residence

Mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran made her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning revival of The Gershwins’s Porgy and Bess in 2012. In partnership with her husband and collaborator jazz musician Jason Moran, Alicia Hall Moran was awarded a 2017 Art of Change fellowship by the Ford Foundation, and has generated works for the 56th Venice Biennial, the 2012 Whitney Biennial, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among many others.

While in residence at the Gardner Museum in 2012, Hall Moran was drawn to the presence of music in the collection. Among the pieces that caught her eye were an etching of a Norwegian girl at a piano by Anders Zorn, a choir book in the Gothic Room, a choir book page in the Chapel, and the painting A Woman with a Lute (1520) by Bartolomeo Veneto. Delving into the evolution of the Museum’s historic music program, Moran spent time in the Archives looking at Gardner’s guest books from 1897–98, programs for concerts held at Gardner’s Green Hill and Beacon Street residences, and past Gardner Museum concert programs. She attended a conversation hosted in Calderwood Hall on December 8 by Raqs Media Collective titled “Why Does Music Move Us?” as part of their The Great Bare Mat Exchange: A Carpet for Conversations program. 2004 Artist-in-Residence Danijel Zezelj was a guest panelist, alongside Cyro Baptista, Paavali Jumppanen, and Sindhumathi Revuluri.

Alicia Hall Moran performs in Calderwood Hall.

On Thursday, May 16, 2013, Moran performed AiR (Alicia-intersection-Ross), an experiment in sound, situation, and play. AiR was based on the brilliant collection of songs and spirituals written and arranged by the tenor (and music scholar) Roland Hayes (1887–1977), the first African American to perform as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Composed for classical voice and electric guitar, the piece included accompaniment by guitarist Brandon Ross, soprano Sarita Rachelle Lilly, and video artist Joseph Paul Alvarado, whose colorful short films on Alicia Hall Moran’s life were projected behind the musicians.

Alicia Hall Moran, mezzo-soprano, is a multimedia artist working in performance, music, and fine art. She has collaborated with Kara Walker, Adam Pendleton, Joan Jonas, Carrie Mae Weems, Simone Leigh, and choreographer Bill T. Jones. She has received commissions from ArtPublic at Miami Art Basel; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Kitchen, New York; and Histories Remixed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her second album, Here Today, with cover artwork by Amy Sherald, was released December 21, 2017.