INFEMNITY™ Arts and Culture News

On November 21st, Nina Kennedy  was presented with a 2024 Gay City News Impact Award for her contributions to the arts in her role as Creative Director of INFEMNITY Productions . Here are more photos from the celebration held in the ballroom of Terrace on the Park in Queens, New York, presented by Bethpage Federal Credit Union and Schneps Media. Already posting to social media Addressing the crowd during the VIP Power Hour Walking the Red Carpet when her name was called Notice Nina's pic on the screen! Nina is seated on the front row, 3rd from right Read the description of the event  here . A wonderful time was had by all! Photos by Ralph DePas and Ramy Mahmoud

  Nina Kennedy (photo: Arian Clay-Sirop) New York City -- Several LGBTQ leaders and allies were honored on November 21st for their outstanding achievements and dedication to the community at the ninth annual Gay City News Impact Awards, presented by Bethpage Federal Credit Union. The Impact Awards... "Honors individuals who make a difference to leave people better than they found them." There were honorees from various backgrounds, including activism, the arts, filmmaking, law, education, non-profit, government, and medicine. A VIP Power Hour was held before the actual awards ceremony, where honorees addressed the room from the stage to introduce themselves and their organizations. "It was a very delightful, inspiring evening," said Nina Kennedy. "As the owner of a production company, I've been very concerned about the huge discrepancy between men and women when it comes to film financing. Women are not producing enough feature-length films, as compared to ...

  by Pedro Antonio Muñoz Helguera September 15, 2024 | Mexico City [Translated from Spanish] Today we are going to talk of the incredible concert that the American pianist Nina Kennedy gave in the Blas Galindo Auditorium at the National Center for the Arts here in Mexico City just yesterday, September 14. Her presentation was truly emotional, impeccable technique, and a selection of pieces that ranged from European Romanticism to American and Latin folklore. The recital was solo piano, which gave it an extremely intimate touch and allowed the audience to connect to the compositions. Kennedy played it all: there were pieces by Chopin, also Liszt, there was music from America as in John W. Work and R. Nathaniel Dett. There were also Latino composers such as Manuel de Falla and Ernesto Lecuona. To begin the concert with Ravel's  Valses Nobles et Sentimentales , she transported us to a world full of delicacy, the complexity of the waltzes under the hands of Kennedy who showed perf...

  After a five-year pause due to the COVID pandemic, Nina Kennedy will be presenting concerts at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and in Mexico City at the National Arts Center next month. In Mexico City she will be appearing as part of the  27th Festival Internacional de Piano En Blanco y Negro  on Saturday, September 14th at 7:00 pm., presenting a recital of works by Ravel, Chopin, Schumann, de Falla, Lecuona, and African-American composers John W. Work III and R. Nathaniel Dett. At Vanderbilt she will present the same program at the Blair School of Music  in Turner Recital Hall on Thursday September 5th. She will also appear Sunday, September 8th at the First Baptist Church Capitol Hill as part of the Grandparents' Day celebration. She will also conduct a master class at Fisk University. Praised by the New York Times as one of the great pianists of her generation, Nina   Kennedy is a world-renowned concert pianist, orchestral conductor, award- winning fil...

It was a long time coming, but the 2022 International Conference on James Baldwin took place in Nice and Saint-Paul de Vence June 16th through 18th. I was excited to be able to participate as a panelist in the session titled "James Baldwin and the Internal Closet" with co-panelist Diane Harriford of Vassar College. Nearly 200 attendees came from all over the globe to sit in on panels, and to view items that had belonged to Baldwin that were on display. As Saint-Paul de Vence was Baldwin's adopted home, being in the medieval village took on an air of pilgrimage as the conference director Shannon Cain took us on a walking tour of the area where Baldwin lived for 17 years, to the spot where his house stood. Shannon lead a one-woman campaign to keep Baldwin's house from being demolished when investors wanted to build on the property. Unfortunately, she lost that battle, but her efforts to keep Baldwin's legacy alive, in spite of objections from Baldwin's family, c...

  Pianist/author Nina Kennedy and sociology professor Diane Harriford will share the stage in a discussion titled "James Baldwin and the Internal Closet" at the 2022 International Conference on James Baldwin in Nice, France June 18th. During this discussion, a clip from Renée   Baker's opera BALDWIN CHRONICLES: The Art of Being Black  will be screened. Originally scheduled to take place in 2020, the Baldwin Conference was planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of James Baldwin's arrival in the South of France. The conference was postponed twice because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, but is finally happening June 16-18 at the Centre Universitaire Mediterranean. Nina Kennedy* Pianist and conductor Nina Kennedy is the author of  Practicing for Love: A Memoir  and  Practice What You Preach . Her portion of the discussion will focus on Baldwin's closetedness in his public life, and his very public "friendships" with Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Nina Simo...

  Nina and Matthew Kennedy On February 24th, the Church of the Holy Spirit of Lake Forest, Illinois presented a panel discussion on "The History and Evolution of the Negro Spiritual." Panelists included former Fisk Jubilee Singers Delano O'Banion, George Cooper, Robert Denson, and E.J. Murray. Nina Kennedy was the only non-Jubilee Singer panelist, as her father served as director of the group from 1957 to 1986. The Reverend Mother Jihan Murray-Smith, Associate Rector at the Church of the Holy Spirit, - and also a former Fisk Jubilee Singer - served as moderator. The conversation included much history of the Negro Spiritual starting with its origins on American plantations during slavery, and the importation of African melodies during the Middle Passage. Several recordings were heard including those of Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. Delano O'Banion While the famous portrait of the Fisk Jubilee Singers commissioned by Queen Victoria was on the screen, Nina Kennedy sh...

Bill Egan , author of the new book African American Entertainers in Australia and New Zealand: A History, 1788-1941 is Nina Kennedy's guest on the November episode of The Noshing with Nina Show . The Fisk Jubilee Singers under director Frederick Loudin - who had sung with the original Fisk Jubilee Singers of 1872 - sailed to Australia in 1888, and remained in the "Australian Colonies" for 3 and a half years. Bill Egan devoted several pages in his book to the Jubilee Singers, and quoted some of the observations written by piano accompanist Leota Henson. The first African American woman to study piano at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music - which was founded by composer Felix Mendelssohn in 1843 - Leota had typed seven pages that she titled "A Few Notes on the Life of Leota Henson." Host Nina Kennedy found those seven pages in a box of her grandmother's papers. Her grandmother, Nina Hortense Clinton, had sung with a later group of Jubilee Singers (1900-1903), ...

Practicing for Love: A Memoir by Nina Kennedy by Bill Egan The title of this autobiographical story succinctly captures the central dilemma of the author’s life. A child prodigy classical pianist, Nina knows, like all musicians, that practice makes perfect but never ends. Even the greatest virtuoso will practice scales and basic exercises daily. But is there an equivalent practice for personal love? More of that later! Nina Kennedy Nina Kennedy was born to musically professional parents, Anne Gamble Kennedy, and Matthew Kennedy. They had historic links to the great Fisk Jubilee Singers, whose heroic tale spans back to 1871, and is a living tradition to this day. Both parents were professors of piano, and Matthew was the director of the Fisk Singers for over thirty years. By any standards they were high profile members of the African American cultural community, growing up in an era when the Harlem Renaissance was flourishing. This would seem to augur well for their only...

Anne Gamble Kennedy Anne Gamble Kennedy's 100th birthday will be celebrated on September 25th, 2020 with the launch of a virtual online exhibit curated by INFEMNITY Productions  on  celebratelifesmoments.online , in conjunction with Fisk University. Co-sponsors include the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the Nashville Chapter of Links, Oberlin Conservatory Alumni Association, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), First Baptist Church Capitol Hill in Nashville, and media sponsor The Tennessee Tribune . Anne Gamble Kennedy was born in Charleston, West Virginia on September 25th, 1920. Her parents were Dr. Henry Floyd Gamble of North Garden, Virginia, and the former Nina Hortense Clinton of Zanesville, Ohio. Her mother sang and toured the United Kingdom with Frederick Loudin's Fisk Jubilee Singers from 1900 to 1903, and played the piano. Anne received her first piano lessons from her mother, and gave her first complete piano recital in Charleston at age twelve. ...

Nina Gamble Kennedy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nina Kennedy Nina Gamble Kennedy  (born 1960) is an American classical pianist, orchestral conductor, filmmaker, and writer. She is the daughter of  Matthew Washington Kennedy , concert pianist and director of the  Fisk Jubilee Singers  from 1957 to 1986; and  Anne Gamble Kennedy , also a concert pianist and piano accompanist for the  Fisk Jubilee Singers . Both of her parents served as members of the piano faculty at  Fisk University . Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Critical reception 4 Recordings 5 Writings 6 Films 7 References Early life Born in  Nashville, Tennessee , Kennedy received her first musical instruction from her parents. She was enrolled in formal piano classes at the  Blair Academy of Music  in 1968, first with William Higgs, and later with Enid Katahn who would be her primary piano teacher until 1978. She was presente...