DR. LISA PERTILLAR BREVARD is an internationally-recognized scholar and creative artist, whose projects include the 1997 National Public Radio series, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" (the Civil Rights radio documentary, which she named and which received a 1998 Peabody Award); and "Wade in the Water": African American Sacred Music Traditions (1994), a 26-hour National Public Radio/Smithsonian Institution project, which received a 1995 Peabody Award and a National Education Association Award. She holds a Smith College Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Afro-American Studies; as well as an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree in African-American Sacred Music and Literature and a Certificate in Women's Studies from Emory University. |
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| In the CREATIVE ARTS ARENA, Lisa Pertillar Brevard considers herself a writer and vocalist, broadly speaking. Her written works in English and Spanish bridge African-American, Latin American and American Indian cultures, and range from scholarly essays to poetry, songs, lyrics and fiction (short and long forms). A member of ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), her songs and (song-) lyrics are published by Monarch Baby Publishing. Brevard's debut spoken word/music CD, In Praise of Ancestors, was released by her own Black Butterfly Records in 2004; also during that year, she also released (The Amplified) Louisiana Dawn: Poems of a Grafted Life, via her Monarch Baby Publishing label. That CD is the companion to her poetry collection, Louisiana Dawn: Poems of a Grafted Life. In 2009, she released I'll Fly Away, a collection of spirituals and original ballads, also via Black Butterfly Records. MP3s are available here. She is also at work on her first novel. In addition to formally studying music at a young age, and regularly performing lecture-recitals of self-arranged African-American spirituals and her own original songs and poetry at colleges and universities throughout the United States and also in Paris, France, Brevard also has a sustained academic background in African Diasporan dance. Brevard also served as Assistant to internationally-acclaimed dancer, choreographer and Anthopologist Pearl Primus at Smith College. Brevard credits her background in dance, as well as the lasting influence of her gospel composer/choral director mother, with providing much of the aesthetic principles upon which she builds words, melodies and songs that MOVE. |
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