Calvert Library "In the News": Calvert Library Hosts Children’s Music Star Pierce Freelon

Calvert Library Hosts Children's Music Star Pierce Freelon

May 20, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Robyn Truslow
410-535-0291

Calvert Library is excited to present children's music star Pierce Freelon in a one-of-a-kind concert experience on Saturday, June 12 at 1pm. The concert will be livesteamed on Crowdcast, Facebook and YouTube on June 12 at 1pm. After the show, participants will have the opportunity to ask questions in a live conversation with Pierce Freelon.

Pierce is a children's artist who combines hip hop beats and playful lyrics to create songs with relatable themes of family, fatherhood and joy. His first album, D.a.d., is a family journal chronicling the life and times of a Black millennial father living in the South. Its infectious first single, Daddy Daughter Day, highlights not only Pierce's gifts, but also those of his remarkably talented daughter, Stella.

The concert will be the kickoff event for this year's #calvertREADS summer reading challenge. Each summer, the Calvert Library community comes together to share a love of reading, to challenge one another to make time for books and to win fabulous prizes! This year our challenge is to read and log 1.5 million minutes over the course of the summer. Prizes include a Nintendo Switch, a kid's train table, Beats headphones and lots of gift cards! Everyone is invited to participate, and sign-up could not be easier. Check the Calvert Library website at calvertlibrary.info for more information and to register.

Pierce Freelon is an accomplished hip hop/soul/electronic musician and Emmy-award winning producer, director and professor from Durham, NC whose work has been featured on the TODAY Show, NPR's Now This and in Rolling Stone, Parents Magazine and more. For over 16 years, Pierce has traveled the world teaching hip hop and music production to youth in community centers. He is the co-founder of Beat Making Lab, an Emmy Award-winning PBS web-series, has taught in the departments of music and African American studies at the University of NC at Chapel Hill and is the writer, composer and co-director of an animated series called History of White People in America, an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Pierce is also the founder of Blackspace, a digital maker space where he has mentored dozens of youth, teaching digital storytelling through music and film. For over a decade, he has been the frontman of the critically acclaimed jazz/hip hop quartet The Beast, has toured internationally and has released a series of albums, EPs and mixtapes. In 2022, Little, Brown & Co will release his debut children's book, Daddy Daughter Day (based on his song of the same title).

He is the son of famed Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon, and the late preeminent architect of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Phil Freelon. Pierce lives in Durham with his wife and their two young children.

For more information and pre-registration information on Crowdcast, visit Calvert Library's website at calvertlibrary.info or call 410-535-0291.

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