Students to help bring 1850 event to life

On Saturday, June 17, for the Peterboro Freedom Festival: Juneteenth 2023, students from the Music and Theater Arts Department at SUNY Broome in Binghamton will perform parts of a play written by Dr. Julia Grella O’Connell about the 1850 Cazenovia Convention.

O’Connell created the course “From Spirituals to Hip Hop: American Music of the African Diaspora.” Each semester, O’Connell develops a project-based learning initiative to encourage her students to see the place of their own work in the stream of Black music history and creates an interactive capstone project in the interest of equity and of engaging students of diverse backgrounds.

In the fall of 2022, she created a musical living history program about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Convention in Cazenovia. Students perform the roles of various people who attended the convention. She also did research on music associated with identified people at the convention.

O’Connell is a music scholar who has published articles on topics in 19th and 20th century music. She is the author of the book “Sound, Sin, and Conversion in Victorian England” (Routledge, 2018). As a mezzo-soprano soloist, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe, and co-founded the research-driven chamber music ensembles the Risorgimento Project and the New York Victorian Consort.

She received her doctorate degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and teaches at SUNY Broome. Sha-Diamond Evans, who portrays Emily Edmonson, is a SUNY Broome Community College honors graduate, with an associate degree in music recording and production.

She will be studying Africana studies and history at Binghamton University in the fall.

In 2021, Sha-Diamond curated the multimedia art exhibit “Rooted in the Land: The Music of Black Americans” for the Gallery@SUNY Broome, leading her to discover her passion for history and museum and curatorial work.

She hopes to continue her research on the African diaspora for many years to come, with a goal of making history more accessible to the public outside of the classroom.

Tukwaje Francis will be replaced as Mary Edmonson by Fedeline Jean-Philippe.

Juan Soriano is in his last semester at SUNY Broome, where he is majoring in studio engineering and beat production. He is also a participant in multiple choirs and musical ensembles, and is honored to be giving voice to the great Frederick Douglass.

He plans to apprentice in a recording studio.

Rónán O’Connell, portraying Gerrit Smith, is an 11th-grader and an avid singer, fiddler, and historian. Rónán has performed in the children’s chorus in several productions at Tri-Cities Opera, and sung in the sailors’ chorus in the Summer Savoyards’ production of “H.M.S. Pinafore” in 2022. He is interested in a career in historical preservation carpentry.

Admission to the Saturday drama program is by donation. A Sandwich Shop for Saturday June 17 will be open noon to 5 p.m. at the Smithfield Community Center, sponsored by Peterboro United Methodist Church. A bag lunch is prepared by reservations containing a sandwich of choice — ham, turkey, egg salad, or hot meat ball, and a bag of chips, apple, cookie, and a bottle of water for $15. Sandwich reservations mut be made by June 10 at 315-849-7540 or denisonnaomi491@gmail.com.

For more information on the three days of Peterboro Freedom Festival: Juneteenth 2023 at www.NationalAbolitionHallofFameandMuseum.org, nahofm1835@gmail.com, or 315-308-1890