AMERICA AT 250: RITUAL, RHYTHM, AND REMEMBRANCE
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
7:00–8:30 PM | Doors 6:45 PM
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Flagship
112 N. Boston Ave, Tulsa, OK 74103
Explore how the arts preserve memory, confront difficult histories, and create space for healing and community.
Inspired by the Silkroad's newest program, Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, this collaboration between Silkroad, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and Greenwood Rising brings musicians and culture bearers together to explore how the arts preserve memory, confront difficult histories like the Tulsa Race Massacre, honor Indigenous stories of this land, and create space for healing and community. Through conversation and sound, we ask: what does the future of America sound like?
The conversation features musicians Mazz Swift and Mauro Durante alongside acclaimed artist Joy Harjo and advocate Marilyn Vann.
PANELISTS
Mauro Durante is an internationally acclaimed Italian vocalist, violinist, percussionist, composer, and artistic director of the legendary Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, the ensemble at the forefront of Southern Italy’s traditional pizzica and taranta music. Raised in Salento, Puglia, within a family dedicated to preserving regional folk traditions, Durante joined the group at age 14 and assumed its leadership in 2007, guiding its transformation into one of the world’s most innovative roots music ensembles. A celebrated collaborator, Durante has toured internationally with composer Ludovico Einaudi and performed with artists including Stewart Copeland, Ibrahim Maalouf, and Justin Adams. His work bridges ancestral Mediterranean traditions and contemporary global sounds, earning international recognition and numerous awards. In 2026, he joined the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble, further cementing his reputation as a leading voice in contemporary folk music.
Critically acclaimed as one of America’s most talented and versatile performers today, Violin/Vox/Freestyle Composition artist Mazz Swift has engaged audiences all over the world with the signature weaving of song, melody and improvisation that they call MazzMuse. As a singer, composer and Juilliard-trained violinist who plays electronic and acoustic instruments, Mazz has performed and recorded with a diverse accumulation of artists including The Silkroad Ensemble, William Parker, Butch Morris, Jason Lindner, James “Blood” Ulmer, Vernon Reid, Valerie June, Whitney Houston, DJ Logic, Kanye West, D’Angelo. Mx. Swift is a 2021 United States Artist and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, currently working on a series of compositions that involve conducted improvisation, and that are centered around protest, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of ‘Sankofa’: looking back to learn how to move forward.
Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and is the winner of the Poetry Society of America's 2024 Frost Medal, Yale's 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, and was recently honored with a National Humanities Medal. The author of eleven books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years, several plays, children's books, and non-fiction works, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, her many honors include the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Cloud Runner, Harjo's twelfth book of poetry, will be published by W.W. Norton in Fall of 2026. As a musician and performer, Harjo has produced eight award-winning music albums. Her latest, Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace, produced by Esperanza Spaulding, is now available through Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
Marilyn Vann is President of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association and a leading advocate for the rights of Cherokee Freedmen descendants. A native of Ponca City, Oklahoma, she earned a degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and retired from the U.S. Treasury Department as a General Engineer. Since the early 2000s, Vann has led efforts to secure citizenship rights for Cherokee Freedmen descendants, serving as a principal litigant in the landmark federal case that resulted in a 2017 ruling affirming those rights. She later became the first known Cherokee Freedmen descendant appointed to a governmental position within the Cherokee Nation, serving on its Environmental Protection Commission. Vann continues to assist tribal citizens with enrollment, voter registration, and access to tribal services. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Cherokee Statesman Award.
PARTNERS
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998, recognizing the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration—for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a musical language founded in difference, thus creating the foundation of Silkroad: both a touring ensemble comprised of world-class musicians from all over the globe and a Boston-based non-profit organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.
Greenwood Rising is an award-winning, world-class history center that tells the story of Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District in a holistic, experiential way. Greenwood Rising educates people about the Black Wall Street mindset and America's ongoing racial challenges.
Established in 2015, Tulsa Artist Fellowship was created as a place-based initiative by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) that addresses pressing challenges faced by contemporary artists and arts workers living in and joining Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa Artist Fellowship believes the arts are critical to advancing cultural citizenship and supports community-invested practitioners who intentionally engage with our city.
VISITOR EXPERIENCE
Tulsa Artist Fellowship is committed to creating a welcoming, inclusive, and accessible experience for every visitor. All exhibitions and events are free, open to the public, and thoughtfully documented and archived for continued community access.
Flagship | 112 N. Boston Ave, Tulsa, OK 74103
Our Flagship location is fully wheelchair- and stroller-accessible. Visitors will find a variety of seating options, including designated wheelchair seating and distanced standing areas. Family-scale private washrooms support visitors with disabilities and caregivers who need additional space or changing tables. Street-side parking is available via the Park Mobile App and is free after 5 p.m. and all day Saturday and Sunday.