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Fay Victor: Black Poems
December 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Brooklyn Public Library (Dweck Auditorium)
In collaboration with the Brooklyn Public Library, FourOneOne presents Black Poems, the quintet led by vocalist, composer and educator Fay Victor. Drawing from writers who have served as deep inspirations for Victor throughout her life—Nikki Giovanni, Ntozake Shange, Thulani Davis, Sonya Sanchez, Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde and Jayne Cortez—Black Poems uses eight of their poems as source material for a tapestry-based score and suite. Victor will be joined by poet and vocalist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, pianist Angelica Sanchez, drummer Lesley Mok, and bassist and fellow singer Devon Gates for the first Black Poems performance since 2022. Join us for an inspired interweaving of the Black music and literary traditions, performed by both burgeoning and established forces within New York’s creative music community.
Free w/ RSVP. 4pm, doors 3:30pm -
Fay Victor's Black Sonic Space
Residency
November 1, 2026–January 31, 2027
Over the past 25 years, vocalist, composer and educator Fay Victor has expanded the terrain of America’s Black vocal tradition through a kaleidoscopic career—enveloping her musical upbringings in Brooklyn, Trinidad and Tobago, and Amsterdam’s vibrant “New Dutch Swing” scene of the 1990s. Her singular “everything is everything” approach—from speech to scat, song to call-to-action and interrogations into who gets to make “new music compositions”—has won her a devoted audience over a dozen albums as bandleader. Victor is an electrifying live performer, whose voice can turn from crystalline to gritty within the same breadth. Cecil Taylor was once moved to approach her after a set and exclaim, “Betty Carter would have SHOT you!” From November 2026 through January 2027, her residency with FourOneOne foregrounds the creative histories central to her practice, with the help of collaborators and friends including Terry Jenoure, Lyndon Achee, Jessie Cox, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Devon Gates, Angelica Sanchez, Lesley Mok, and more.
