LISETTE (2022)
A Film by Jean Bernard Cerin & Brandi Berry
Lisette is a 36 minute documentary that traces the long and varied history of "Lisette quitté la plaine," the oldest song text in Haitian Creole from its first setting in colonial Saint Domingue to its adaptations in France, Louisiana, and modern Haiti.
For more information about screenings and licensing, please email Jean Bernard Cerin at jbcerin@gmail.com
Upcoming Screenings:
Ithaca College 2/21/ 2023
Bucknell University 3/23
Past Screenings
Princeton University, 2/23
Yale University, 2/23
Gotham Early Music of Americas 11/22
Cornell University, 8/22
Berkeley Early Music Exposition 6/22
Lincoln University 4/22
Florence Price Intnl. Festival 8/21
CONTRIBUTORS
NATHALIE CERIN
Nathalie Cerin is a Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter, teaching artist, and blogger originally from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She is the co-founder and lead editor of Woy Magazine, a bilingual online media outlet that covers all things Haiti.
CLAUDE DAUPHIN
Claude Dauphin, PhD, is a musicologist and professor emeritus at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His work is divided between 18th century European musicology, music education and Haitian musicology and ethnomusicology. In these different fields of research, he has published more than a dozen books and nearly a hundred academic articles.
LAUREN ELDRIDGE
Lauren Eldridge Stewart, PhD, is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research interests include the cultural uses of classical music, folklore, and material culture across the African diaspora. She is currently writing a book about the influence of global aid on the contemporary practice of classical music in Haiti.
DEBORAH JENSON
Deborah Jenson, PhD, is a professor of Romance Studies and Global Health at Duke University. Jenson is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar whose work in Global Health draws on language, cultural, and historical expertise, with a focus on Haiti and the francophone Caribbean, Africa, and France. At Duke she has directed the Franklin Humanities Institute and the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies and has co-directed the Brain & Society Bass Connections theme. She co-founded and co-directed the Haiti Lab, the Neurohumanities Research Group, and the Health Humanities Lab.
HENRY STOLL
Henry Stoll is a PhD candidate in Historical Musicology at Harvard University, specializing in the music of Haiti and the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic world. His dissertation, The Unsung Revolution: The Music of Haitian Independence, 1804–1820, examines how the nation of Haiti, the world's first Black republic, gave musical expression to the desires, ambitions, plaints, and pleasures of its people.
TONI CALDWELL HALL
Pianist Toni Caldwell-Hall has performed in venues including Temple University, Washington International Piano Arts Council, and Jacobs Music of West Chester. She is in demand as an accompanist for choirs, soloists, ensembles, and churches. Mrs. Hall has served in Philadelphia as minister of music for the Germantown SDA Church and St. James Episcopal Church of Kingsessing. She served on faculty at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
EVE MILLER
Eve Miller is a freelance musician, recording artist, composer, music educator, and music historian. Eve is currently the principal cellist of Philadelphia’s Bach Collegium and she performed as principal cellist of Philadelphia's premiere baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare for many years. Eve continues as a regular member of Tempesta di Mare as she has from it's founding in 2002 and performs as a baroque cellist in the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond. Eve is a music historian and historical performance practice specialist with a focus on music of the eighteenth century. Her recent scholarship includes exploration of “gigging life” in colonial and independent Philadelphia and in particular the effects of French immigration from mainland France and the French colonies on Philadelphia’s eighteenth century musical culture. Eve received a Bachelor's Degree in cello performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and a Master's Degree of Music History from Temple University.
DEBRA NAGY
Praised for her “dazzling technique and soulful expressiveness,” (Rocky Mountain News), and a musical approach that’s “distinctly sensual … pliant, warm, and sweet,” (New York Times), Debra Nagy is principal oboe of Boston's Handel & Haydn Society and founder/director of Les Délices. Inspired by a creative process that brings together research, composition in historical styles, improvisation, and artistic collaboration, Debra’s recent projects have included critically-acclaimed multimedia productions of Machaut's medieval masterpiece Remede de Fortune, music from the Leuven Songbook (c. 1470), and an acclaimed CD combining jazz and French Baroque airs called Songs without Words. She eagerly anticipates the premiere performances of The White Cat (postponed from April 2020), a pastiche Baroque opera for singers and chamber ensemble with puppetry and projections based on the Countess D’Aulnoy’s 1690s feminist fairytale. In the pandemic, Debra reimagined Les Délices’ concert series for the virtual space and created a web series variety show for early music called SalonEra.
RICHARD STONE
The Washington Post has described lutenist Richard Stone’s playing as having “the energy of a rock solo and the craft of a classical cadenza.” His recordings of the Fasch lute concerto and the complete Weiss lute concerti are available on Chandos Records. Other recording and broadcast credits include Deutsche Grammophon, Polygram, NPR, the BBC and Czech Radio. Stone co-founded and co-directs Philadelphia baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare and is professor of lute and theorbo at the Peabody Institute. He has been guest soloist with Apollo’s Fire, Handel and Haydn Society, Mark Morris Dance Group, the Boston Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Richard is a native of western Massachusetts, and after all these years people will snicker when he says "roof" or "broom."
