Singer-Songwriter St. Lenox Addresses Immigration, Music, Songwriting in UK Residency
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 24, 2018) — Singer-songwriter St. Lenox will participate in a multi-day residency this week at University of Kentucky Division of Musicology and Ethnomusicology. His visit, also part of the UK College of Arts and Sciences’ Year of Migration, will include a songwriting session, an artist talk and performance Sept. 27-28. All events are free and open to the public.
St. Lenox is the musical moniker for Andrew Choi. Called a “lyricist of the highest order” by the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, his last album was hailed as “a 21st century pop masterpiece” (PopMatters). In addition to receiving early training in violin at Juilliard, Choi holds a doctoral degree in philosophy from Ohio State University and a law degree from New York University and is a practicing attorney in New York City.
During his multi-day residency at UK, Choi will give a special songwriter session for those interested in the song and lyric-writing process beginning 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in the Niles Gallery, located in the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center. On Friday, Sept. 28, Choi will give an artist talk at 3:30 p.m. followed by an intimate acoustic performance later that evening at 7 p.m. Both Friday events will be presented in the Niles Gallery as well.
Choi’s artist talk is titled “Issues of Immigration in the Visual Album ‘Ten Hymns From My American Gothic.’” While the album was originally released in 2016, the visual album was not released until June 2017, with much of it addressing the direct aftermath and impact of the presidential election. This highly innovative collection of videos greatly expanded upon the themes of the album, elaborating upon a range of hot-button issues including education, the law, the immigrant experience, gun control, LGBT issues and American politics.
The Friday performance by St. Lenox will feature more acoustic-oriented songs from his various albums and will also include the local up-and-coming folk singer Josiah Letchworth as an opener. The timing of this performance comes one day before the release of this third album titled “Ten Fables of Young Ambition and Passionate Love,” which has already received a positive review from Josh Terzino on Music.Defined. Terzino writes, “There are a lot of great sing-a-long moments in these songs that make me wish I still had a car so I could drive around and scream these lyrics out the windows.” Audience members should be able to hear an advance preview of some of these songs, and maybe sing-a-long too.
This St. Lenox concert is sponsored by the Year of Migration, the School of Music, the Division of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, the Longyear and MacAdam Endowments. For more information about these events, please contact Donna Kwon, coordinator of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, by email at donna.kwon@uky.edu or by phone at 859-257-4912.
