Experimental Sound Studio is excited to co-present Taalib-Din Ziyad & Mankwe Ndosi with Compound Yellow in an end-of-summer outdoor OPTION series program! This performance and interview is presented in the Compound Yellow yard, and will be premiered online on ESS's YouTube. Ugochi Nwaogwugwu will lead the interview with Mankwe and Taalib-Din.
The OPTION series is curated by Tomeka Reid, Ken Vandermark, and Andrew Clinkman.
All 2022 performances are FREE and will be presented in-person throughout Chicago and as videos on ESS’s YouTube.
About the Artists
Taalib-Din Ziyad is a vocalist,flutist, composer, arranger and instructor. Taalib-Din received vocal training as a teenager with the renowned Lina McLin and classical training at the Chicago Music School/Roosevelt College with voice instructor Thelma Wade Brown. He began performing in various recitals throughout Chicagoland and Indiana in his early teens. After being drafted in the Army, Taalib-Din continued his love of music by performing in the 3rd Army Soldier Show. This group toured the southeastern states entertaining troops.
In 1991 Taalib-Din became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Created Musicians (AACM). During this time he performed as a vocalist and flutist with Vandy Harris Front Burners.
Taalib-Din has performed with many notable musicians such as Ari Brown, Phil Kelan Cohran, Ernest Kabeer Dawkins, Adegoke Steve Colson, Jodie Christian and many more. Taalib-Din is a member of the Renee Baker Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, AACM Great Black Music Ensemble, AACM Experimental Ensemble and Art Turk Burton’s Congo Square.
He has performed in Paris France; Poznan Poland; the Umbria Jazz Festival; the Frankfort Jazz Festival in Frankfort Germany and many other venues.
Taalib-Din has held the position school instructor; AACM finance officer and most recently as Vice President from 2016 to 2020.
Mankwe Ndosi is a Vocalist, Composer, and Culture Worker of sound and soil. Her practice emerges from black ritual legacies of music and performance learned from and played with Douglas R. Ewart, Laurie Smith Carlos, Sharon Bridgforth, Amoke Kubat, Nicole Mitchell, Miriam Makeba, ancestors, earth, and many peers across species, cultures, and creative genres. She crafts sonic and soil experiences for transformation and liberation that connect the electro-magnetics of internal landscapes with the power of the earth.
About the Interviewer
Ugochi Nwaogwugwu is a multidisciplinary creative, a professional poet and writer, internationally renowned musician, and poetry instructor and founder of Spirit Speaks, Inc. Ugochi has produced, written, and co-arranged three album projects: African Buttafly, A.S.E., and Love Shot. Her poems have been published in Storm Between Two Fingers and Too Young, Too Loud Too Different, both international anthologies released in the United Kingdom. She is also featured in Golden Shovel Anthology, released nationally in the US honoring Gwendolyn Brooks; ‘The Eternal year of African People,” and “Wherever I am At,” released nationwide.
Ugochi is a beloved member of her poetry community in Chicago, Leeds, and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen in London, England. Ugochi has created an original pan African poetry form called #Ikepoem, paying homage to her Igbo family of Nigeria. She has written newsworthy blogs and essays including “Not My President,” published by Third World Press. Ugochi is also a playwright, activist, racial healing practitioner with Truth Racial Healing & Transformation, and a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and the Recording Academy/Grammys Chicago Chapter.
About OPTION
OPTION is an ongoing music salon curated by Chicago musicians Andrew Clinkman, Tomeka Reid, and Ken Vandermark and presented by Experimental Sound Studio. Its programming explores contemporary perspectives on improvisation and composition in a 'salon' format, enabling local, national, and international artists to publicly discuss their practice and ideas as well as perform.