Luckily, the Reagons got free reign from Butler herself, who died in 2006. And I was like, 'Woo hoo, I'm going to go teach at Princeton for Toni Morrison - yay, it's so cool!'" she laughs.Įventually, mother and daughter began writing their own musical interpretation of Parable of the Sower. Mom was really busy at the time, and she was like, 'Maybe Toshi can do half the classes!' I was like, you know, young in my career. "It's an opportunity for an artist to teach at Princeton for a semester. "Toni Morrison asked my mother to come to Princeton to do the Princeton Atelier," Reagon explains. Their first joint opportunity to explore Butler's work through music came in the 1990s. Toshi Reagon says she and her mother share a deep love of Octavia Butler's writing. The opera version of Parable of the Sower was created by singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon and her mother, activist and singer Bernice Johnson Reagon, who founded the ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock and is now retired. In the sequel, Parable of the Talents, an authoritarian politician promises to "make America great again." (It's a phrase that Butler observed Ronald Reagan using on the campaign trail during his successful 1980 presidential run.) There's a climate crisis driving people out of their homes. They're learning a chorus that includes the opening words of Octavia Butler's novel. On a warm recent evening in Manhattan, we're sitting at rehearsal amidst 170 community singers who are part of the Parable performance at New York's Lincoln Center alongside professional musicians. This Afrofuturistic book about a dystopian America set in our time now seems positively prophetic - and a new musical interpretation of Butler's novel is touring the country. Octavia Butler's sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower was published 30 years ago, in 1993. Visual artist Paul Lewin created this work for Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon's musical setting of Parable of the Sower.
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