The New Orleans based musical ensemble, Les Cenelles, which Frazier leads, performed a series of songs, including languages of the Gulf South—Louisiana Creole, which developed among enslaved Africans, and the language of the Atakapa-Ishak, one of the region’s Indigenous peoples. It was a tribute, Frazier said, to the people and cultures that have been marginalized over time in the name of industrial progress. For instance, in St. James Parish, Louisiana, there are more than 100 petrochemical facilities in the same places that were once plantations. “It’s also the gravesite of many African-descended people,” Frazier said. Les Cenelles, the musical ensemble, was named after the 19th century AfroCreole poets in New Orleans who published the first anthology of poetry of free people of color. Les Cenelles is composed of three members, Joseph B. Darensbourg, Peter J. Bowling, and Denise Frazier. The group plays 19th century Louisiana Creole music and creates original works that are inspired by the natural and cultural environment of the Gulf South region. Frazier, through the MIT MLK Fellowship, invited MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering faculty, Michael Tarkanian and Rhea Vedro, along with Les Cenelles and multimedia artists Lisa E. Harris, James Goedert, and Antonio Garza to perform A Stone of Hope; a sound design, performed in the Merton C. Flemings Materials Processing Laboratory, and inspired by materials science and the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the African descended community of Cambridge and the Black Church.
Vedro invited as Contributing Performer on A Stone of Hope by Dr. Denise Frazier, MIT MLK Scholar together with Les Cenelles and special guests.
