Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran: Family Ball

Family Ball (working title) is the newest collaboration by husband-and-wife creative duo pianist and composer Jason Moran and mezzo-soprano and composer Alicia Hall Moran. This world premiere performance—commissioned by the ICA and conceived during the pandemic—scrutinizes the intricacy of human partnership and presents it in raw form through music and song. The set, created by renowned production designer Maggie Ruder, recreates the Morans’ living room in their New York City apartment. The performances take viewers through an evening inside the household, where brutal revelations won by tiny wars for autonomy are examined, and nourishments and obligations tussle. In harmony and in dissonance, for better and for worse, people in the household collect deeper themes that will be lived out over the course of their lives as they wander into a future together and apart. Family Ball is an acknowledgment of the gripping power of love—and all its attachments—on the narrative of our lives.

As a team, Jason and Alicia Hall Moran have contributed substantially to the ever-changing face of contemporary performance practice and cross-collaborative musical explorations in history and culture.  Their collaborations as a husband and wife team include Chantal (2022) at Washington National Opera, Two Wings: The Migration of Black Music in America (2019) at Carnegie Hall and toured extensively, most recently at Mississippi Museum of Art (Sept 2022), Work Songs (2015) for the 56th Venice Biennial curated by the late Okwui Enwezor, and Bleed (2012) for the Whitney Biennial.