Enft. (Backspace)

Join us for a listening session and discussion of Yvette Janine Jackson’s radio opera Enft. (Backspace) commissioned by Cashmere Radio for Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Share this special listening experience of Jackson's most recent radio opera in a comfortable setting with Jackson in person. Following the session, Jackson talks about her work, inspiration, and radio operas in general followed by a Q&A. LIght refreshments will be available.

Jackson’s radio operas are abstract narrative compositions that leave room listeners to form their own connections and interpretations. Listeners are encouraged to get comfortable, close their eyes, and let the journey unfold.

Entf. (Backspace) was composed at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Sweden and features Jackson’s Radio Opera Workshop: Tommy Babin (bass), Amy Cimini (electric viola), Judith Hamann (cello), Jonathan Piper (tuba), Mali Irene (voice), leo (voice), Bär Kittelmann (voice), and Nino Bulling (voice). The broadcast premiere is September 5, 2025.

Yvette Janine Jackson is a composer and installation artist who draws on her background in theatrical sound design to create “radio operas,” an aesthetic of narrative soundscape composition described by The Guardian as “immersive non-visual films.”

Recent projects include Hello, Tomorrow! for orchestra and electronics co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and American Composers Orchestra; and T-Minus, A Radio Opera commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble. Her permanent installations Underground (Codes) and Destination Freedom can be experienced at Wave Farm in Acra, New York, and the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.

Jackson is a recipient of the 2025 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts and the Giga-Hertz Production Award presented by ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and SWR Experimentalstudio. She has contributed to the bilingual publication Composing While Black: Afrodiasporische Neue Musik Heute / Afrodiasporic New Music Today (Wolke Verlag, 2023). She is an associate professor in Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry in the Department of Music at Harvard University.

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