Ask Your Mama

Jessye Norman presides over a new realization of composer Laura Karpman's audacious, swinging evening-length multimedia work, based on a set of music-saturated 1961 poems by Langston Hughes. Joining Norman are actor Roger Guenveur Smith, jazz singer Nnenna Freelon and electric bassist Meshell Ndegeocello; George Manahan conducts the Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia.