The Rhapsody Project

Our project, Harmonies in Heritage, highlighted the ways in which foundational styles of popular music emerged in the United States, contextualizing slavery and the legacy of racism and its impact on American music from antebellum times, throughout Jim Crow, and on into the present. The project consisted of a series of workshops and culminating concert event. Harmonies In Heritage helped students celebrate and embrace the fact that music is one of America’s proudest creations, and that - whatever one’s identity might be - they should celebrate that creation while acknowledging the complexity and tragedy that is bound up in it.