“Meeting the Moment with Michael Mwenso” and guest Dashon Burton

Welcome to episode six of “Meeting the Moment with Michael Mwenso.”

This installment features Dashon Burton, a bass-baritone who portrays Robert Moses in A Marvelous Order. The multimedia opera explores the struggle between Moses, master builder, and Jane Jacobs, self-taught oracle of urban insight, over the fate of New York City in the mid-twentieth century. The world premiere performance of the opera is tentatively scheduled for November 2021 at Eisenhower Auditorium.

Mwenso, a Harlem-based cross-genre artist and leader of jazz-funk band The Shakes, is partnering with the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State to provide opportunities for faculty, staff, students, and community members to engage in thought-provoking conversations that speak to the topics of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Burton is a founding member of the progressive vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, with whom he earned a Grammy Award for the group’s recording of Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices. Roomful of Teeth, which also includes Shaw as a vocalist, performed the award-winning composition and other music at Schwab Auditorium in 2016.

The free live conversation between Mwenso and Burton will be broadcast via the Zoom video app, and questions will be taken in real time from audience members through the chat function.