The Billie Holiday Symposium at Hunter College

Please join us as Roosevelt House celebrates the artistry of the great Billie Holiday and the publication of Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year by Hunter College Professor of English and Symposium Director Paul Alexander. To mark the occasion, The Billie Holiday Symposium at Hunter College will bring together prominent singers, musicians, scholars, and authors, including several of Holiday’s friends and associates, to explore—and experience—the enduring significance of Billie Holiday’s music.

Among those featured in this all-day event will be Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author Margo Jefferson; singer-songwriter (and Billie Holiday’s goddaughter) Mala Waldron; Lorraine Feather, also a goddaughter of Billie Holiday’s and a three-time Grammy-nominated lyricist and singer; esteemed jazz writer and the winner of eight Grammy Awards for Best Liner Notes, Dan Morgenstern; star of Broadway shows, including Rent and Jesus Christ Superstar, Maya Days; economist and adopted son of Abel Meeropol, the composer of “Strange Fruit,” Michael Meeropol; and one of today’s most popular jazz singer-songwriters Madeleine Peyroux, among others.

Conceived, produced, and moderated by Paul Alexander, an esteemed biographer of American cultural and political figures, the symposium will consider the legacy of Holiday through the lenses of her personal life, her music, and her most iconic and powerful song, “Strange Fruit.” The symposium will conclude with an evening performance by leading jazz vocalists and musicians of some of Holiday’s most popular songs—as well as some of the most overlooked.

11:30am – 1:00pm
Billie Holiday and the Legacy of “Strange Fruit”
An exploration of the singer’s most daring and controversial song

Margo Jefferson is the author of two memoirs, Constructing a Nervous System and Negroland, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, and On Michael Jackson. Her nonfiction has appeared in Newsweek, Vogue, New York, The Nation, and The New York Times, where she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for her book reviews and cultural criticism. She teaches writing at Columbia University.

David Margolick is a veteran journalist and frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Review of Books. He has published nine books, including a forthcoming biography of Sid Caesar. He is the author of Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, which chronicles the history and cultural relevance of the song.

Michael Meeropol is an economist, educator, and author. The biological son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, he and his brother, Robert, were adopted by Abel Meeropol, the composer of “Strange Fruit.” Over the years, Meeropol has written and lectured extensively about the importance of the song as an anthem for social reform.

2:30pm – 4:30pm
Billie Holiday: The Person
Friends and colleagues recall the “Lady Day” they knew

Lorraine Feather, goddaughter of Billie Holiday, is a Grammy-nominated recording artist who has released 13 albums, among them Ages and Café Society. Her work in film and television, for which she has earned seven Emmy Award nominations, includes lyrical contributions to Babes in Toyland, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Rules Don’t Apply, Warren Beatty’s last film for which she co-wrote the title track with Eddie Arkin. Her father, the jazz writer and presenter Leonard Feather, was one of Billie Holiday’s closest friends.

Dan Morgenstern is among jazz’s most esteemed writers. A long-time editor of Down Beat, he is the author of Jazz People and Living with Jazz. He has won eight Grammy Awards for Best Liner Notes. He is Director Emeritus of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. He will discuss Holiday as an artist whom he came to know well.

Ricky Riccardi is the Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum. He is the author of What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years and Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong. He won a Grammy Award for Best Liner Notes for The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia and RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-1966. His talk on this panel is entitled “Louis and Billie.”

Sonny Rollins, who will appear in an interview recorded exclusively for the symposium, is one of the most legendary tenor saxophonists in jazz history. Among his essential albums are Saxophone Colossus, Way Out West, The Sound of Sonny Rollins, The Bridge, Freedom Suite, and This is What I Do. His honors include three Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 2011. Rollins appeared on shows with Billie Holiday during the final year of her life, when they became friends.

Mala Waldron is a singer-songwriter whose albums include Deep Resonance; Always There; He’s My Father; and Lullaby, her solo debut and tribute to her godmother, Billie Holiday. She has recorded with her father, Mal Waldron, the accomplished pianist and composer (“Soul Eyes”) who served as Billie Holiday’s accompanist for the last two years of her life. Waldron has performed at the Blue Note, the Jazz Standard, BAM, and The Kennedy Center.  

6:00pm – 7:30pm
Billie Holiday: The Music
Billie’s admirers take the stage at Roosevelt House

Featuring Musical Performances By

Yolande Bavan is a Sri Lankan singer and actress who famously replaced Annie Ross when she left Lambert Hendricks & Ross, jazz’s most successful trio; the group played for three years as Lambert Hendricks & Bavan. Her film acting credits include Parting Glances, One True Thing, Cosmopolitan, and The Brave One. Billie Holiday was her friend and mentor.

Maya Days has starred on Broadway in Rent, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Aida. In Rent, she also appeared in Los Angeles and on the West End in London. Additional theater credits include Once Around the Sun and No Strings. As a solo artist, she has performed at Sundance, Feinstein’s, Ministry of Sound (London), 54 Below, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall.

Lorraine Feather, goddaughter of Billie Holiday, is a Grammy-nominated recording artist who has released 13 albums, among them Ages and Café Society. Her work in film and television, for which she has earned seven Emmy Award nominations, includes lyrical contributions to Babes in Toyland, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Rules Don’t Apply, Warren Beatty’s last film for which she co-wrote the title track with Eddie Arkin. Her father, the jazz writer and presenter Leonard Feather, was one of Billie Holiday’s closest friends.

Mala Waldron is a singer-songwriter whose albums include Deep Resonance; Always There; He’s My Father; and Lullaby, her solo debut and tribute to her godmother, Billie Holiday. She has recorded with her father, Mal Waldron, the accomplished pianist and composer (“Soul Eyes”) who served as Billie Holiday’s accompanist for the last two years of her life. Waldron has performed at the Blue Note, the Jazz Standard, BAM, and The Kennedy Center.  

Madeleine Peyroux is a singer who got her start busking on the streets of Paris and has become one of the most popular jazz singer-songwriters performing today. Her albums include the bestselling Dreamland, the gold record Careless Love, The Blue Room, Secular Hymns, and Anthem. Her version of Serge Gainsbourg’s “La Javanaise” appeared in the Academy Award-winning film The Shape of Water. She tours extensively, both nationally and internationally. Peyroux counts Billie Holiday among her most important influences.

Paul Alexander, Symposium Director and Moderator, has published eight books, among them Rough Magic, a biography of Sylvia Plath, and Salinger, a biography of J. D. Salinger that was the basis of a documentary televised on PBS’ American Masters, Netflix, and HBO. His nonfiction has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Newsday, New York, The Guardian, The Nation, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. This is the second Roosevelt House symposium helmed by Alexander; the first focused on Plath.

Julie Rosenberg, Student Committee Chair, is a senior at Hunter College who is majoring in English and plans to pursue a graduate degree in adolescent education.

Student Symposium Committee:
Mykaya Borden
Hannah Busch
Stevie Dattomo
Michelle Dmitrenko
Diana Lopez
Sara Mahraoui
Nadia Martinez
Peri Micheva
Julie Rosenberg (Chair)
Neil Sawhney
Chynna Slaughter
Emma Tramontana
Olivia Tymon
Kristina Xhangolli