Great Movies
Chi-chi Nwanoku, the world-renowned double-bass player, will attend a screening of Barrie Gavin's 2012 documentary, "Chi-chi: Tales from the Bass Line," at Chicago's Black Cinema House, 7200 South Kimbark Ave., Monday, February 9th, at 7pm. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Music and the Center for the Study of Race Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago. Nwanoku will participate in a post-screening Q&A with CFCA member and Black Harvest Film Festival programmer Sergio Mims. She is also scheduled to give a talk and masterclass at the University of Chicago on Tuesday, February 10th (click here for the full line-up of events).
According to the official synopsis on the Black Cinema House site, Gavin's film includes interviews with Nwanoku where she "recounts the hurdles she faced growing up as a mixed-race child," the daughter of Nigerian and Irish parents, and "scaling the musical establishment in Britain." There is also ample performance footage in which Nwanoku tackles the work of such legendary composers as Joseph Haydn, Hector Berlioz, Edward Elgar and Antonín Dvořák.
Nwanoku has performed with the London Mozart Players, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the English Baroque Soloists, the London Classical Players and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. She is Principal Double Bass and a founder member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Endymion Ensemble, as well as Professor of Double Bass Historical Studies at The Royal Academy of Music. She also gives masterclasses as a visiting professor at conservatories around the world. She sits on a number of advisory boards in the UK, including the Royal Philharmonic Society, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the Mayor’s Fund for Young Musicians.
Doors open at 6:30pm for the February 9th screening and Q&A. To RSVP, click here.
