Event Description

Bank Street College/Lincoln Center Institute performance with master storyteller, narrator, instrumentalist and singer, Charlotte Blake Alston. Charlotte breathes life into traditional and contemporary stories from African and African American oral and cultural traditions. Her solo performances are often enhanced with traditional instruments such as djembe, mbira, shekere or the 21-stringed kora. In 1999, she began studying the kora and the West African history-telling traditions of Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau. Her teacher was the highly respected Senegalese griot (jali), Djimo Kouyate.

Charlotte performs in venues throughout North America and abroad. These venues include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kimmel Center, and the Women of the Word Festival in Cape Town, South Africa. She has been a featured artist at the Presidential Inaugural Festivities in Washington, DC and is the first storyteller to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra on both their family and student concert series. For 6 seasons, Charlotte hosted "Carnegie Kids", Carnegie Hall's Preschool concert series and has been a featured artist on the Carnegie Hall Family Concert Series in NY since 1996.