Julie & Elizabeth’s Anti-Capitalist Concert Series
Julie & Elizabeth’s Anti-Capitalist Concert Series is excited to present Gathering Utopias, our 2024-2025 season of concerts and reading groups designed to collectively consider and discuss our utopian imaginary.
The title of our series "Gathering Utopias" is inspired by Ursula LeGuin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.” "Utopia" literally means "no place," signifying that utopia needn’t be a specific location or a singular concept where everyone lives the same way under a unified, abstract ideal. Rather than defining a single conception of utopia, we aim to gather multiple ideas and concepts, and place them in a carrier bag of utopian possibilities. As we work toward our utopian visions, our first concert will focus on defining our needs and desires in our utopias, the second concert will focus on imaging our utopias in detail, and the third concert will present musical vignettes of the utopias we created together.
We invite you to join us in reading, discussing, and listening!
First Concert of the Season
October 19th, 7pm
South Oxford Space, 138 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn
Our first concert of the series features the music of Jen Baker, Gemma Peacocke, Julie Harting, and Elizabeth Adams performed by Kate Amrine (trumpet), Jen Baker (trombone), Mara Mayer (bass clarinet), and Elizabeth Adams (voice). Also performing are Colleen Asper and Bronwyn Roe (words), with visual art by Colleen Asper. Remarks by Hagen Blix.
Admission: Suggested Donation - 1/2 your hourly way, pay what you think is fair, pay what you want. No one turned away.
READING GROUP
For several weeks before each concert we met to read and discuss material relevant to the theme of the concert at The Word is Change Bookstore in Brooklyn. The readings are attached. Our discussion questions for the concert are inspired by the conversations we had there.
Julie & Elizabeth's Anti-Capitalist Concert Series
New Music and Discussion for Political Imagining
Julie & Elizabeth’s Anti-Capitalist Concert Series is a new music concert series founded by composers Julie Harting and Elizabeth Adams. The series started in 2015 in response to Occupy Wall Street.
We present music in a context that acknowledges our political, economic, and social realities. We are interested in programming music and conversation to stimulate thought and discussion envisioning an anti-capitalist future. The concert series is an experiment in sharing our legitimate questions about anti-capitalist struggle with our audience. Ultimately we would like our concerts to lead to collective action.
Probably the most unusual aspect of our concerts is that we ask the audience to participate in small group discussions, interspersing conversation between performances. We invite all of us to feel, think, and talk together about our future and collective action.
Previous concerts have centered around housing, wage labor, abolition, and income inequality. This year through a series of three concerts we will focus on collective envisioning of a post capitalist, egalitarian, free society.
