Ask Your Mama!, with Norman, Aziza and Freelon, Plays Hollywood Bowl Aug. 30

By Andrew Gans
August 30, 2009

Ask Your Mama!, Laura Karpman's multimedia concert production based on Langston Hughes' 1961 poem cycle about African-American life, music and culture, will be presented Aug. 30 at the Hollywood Bowl.

The evening boasts the talents of famed soprano Jessye Norman, the hip-hop group The Roots, jazz great Nnenna Freelon and singer-actress de'Adre Aziza (Passing Strange).

George Manahan conducts the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Show time is 7:30 PM.

Karpman's Ask Your Mama!, according to press notes, is a "90-minute tapestry of music, film, and spoken word that bursts the boundaries of time, place, and verbal expression to trace the currents and tributaries of cultural diasporas. The Hughes/Karpman work travels from Africa to the Americas, from the South to the North, from cities to suburbs, from opera to jazz, from gospel to be-bop — and in Hughes's own words, 'from shadows to fire.'"

The Hollywood Bowl is located at 2301 N. Highland Ave. in Hollywood, CA. Tickets, priced $28-$116, are now on sale by visiting HollywoodBowl.com or by calling (800) 745-3000.