Autumn brings to us harvest tables and a season of reflection as the days get shorter. At this Baltimore Butterfly Session, featuring music, poetry, and more, we’ll be in conversation with local urban farmers who’ll share lessons they’ve learned from nurturing the land and help us understand more about the seeds of change they’re planting in Baltimore. As winter sets in, we’ll leave with renewed appreciation for the ways food connects us to one another and to the earth.
This event is free, please reserve your seat by clicking book tickets above.
Jordan Bethea, Keynote Speaker
Jordan Bethea is a farmer, a home gardener and houseplant enthusiast.
After spending years working in the food service industry and he began to volunteer at local urban farms. These experiences taught him of the immediate value of how individuals can bolster local food production and reorient access for fresh produce for communities that need them most.
Access to beautiful, enriching natural environments for city residents has become very important to him. In time he hopes that with more time spent on the land, fellow citizens will learn a love of nature and the importance of stewardship of the Earth.
John Tyler, Musician
John Tyler is a 21-year-old artist, multi-instrumentalist, multi-genre producer, Founder of Love Groove Music Festival, and film scorer for Under Armour, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Visit Baltimore, and Maryland Public Television. He has been featured in the upcoming HBO show “We Own The City”, Charm TV, Hulu Advertisements, BET Instagram Promotions, Baltimore Magazine, Afro Newspaper, Baltimore Sun, B’more Art, Baltimore’s 92Q, & WTMD. At 16, John released his first mixtape and has since released two more. In 2019, John’s debut album “The Good Side of Things” dropped, setting a high standard for Baltimore music. This project highlights his abilities to merge multiple genres into one.
At 17, John started the Love Groove Music Festival to bring together young artists from different genres of art to showcase talent and to offer learning and networking opportunities. This year marks his fifth showcase, partnering with Hot Sauce Artists Collective, Baltimore Center Stage, to bring an ultimate music, arts, and education festival.
Rachel Winder, Musician
Rachel Winder, a native of Baltimore, is a saxophonist, flutist and vocalist in multiple genres of music. She studied saxophone at the Baltimore School for the Arts, Tanglewood institute and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University where she was awarded the Noble Levi Jolley, Sr. Jazz studies scholarship. She regularly performs with musicians in Baltimore, DC, NYC as well as is in the process of recording her debut album “Vignettes”. She features as the lead alto saxophonist in the New world Outreach Jazz Orchestra, Benny Russell Jazz orchestra, David Murray Baltimore big band and many more. Rachel is dedicated to the education of young people and musicians and works closely with students to mentor and create more opportunity for the youth to become involved in the music scene in Baltimore.
Olu Butterfly Woods, Poet
Lyrical visionary and flying African, Olu Butterfly Woods is a social entrepreneur, mother of 4, and a distinctive performance poet. She has received a Rubys Artist Project Grant, a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award, been voted Favorite All Around Female Poet at The People’s Poetry Awards and “Best Grass-Roots Poet” by The CityPaper. Born in Nigeria, raised in St. Croix, V.I. and Maryland, she is the author of an acclaimed collection of poetry, The Revenge of Dandelions and will soon release Jupiter Memoirs: a collection of afrofantasy poems. A bold and activating curator, Olu has produced a popular artist-development series Organic Soul Tuesdays, a major afrofuture Artscape anchor project, and the B-stage at AFRAM. Olu Butterfly was featured in the Netflix special: Dark City Beneath the Beat, cast in the record-breaking world premiere musical Marley at Baltimore Center Stage and has toured internationally with the band Fertile Ground, as a principal dancer with Sankofa Dance Theater, and independently, sharing the stage with legendary artists such as Hugh Masekela, The Last Poets, Mos Def and Erykah Badu.
The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions: A civic dialogue series at BCS
Inspired by Citizen University’s Civic Saturdays, The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions will bring together music, poetry, literary excerpts and thought-provoking keynote addresses to catalyze conversation and build awareness around today’s most pressing issues. Tapping into some of the brightest voices around the nation and in Baltimore, each Butterfly Session will convene artists, activists, organizers and thinkers to unpack a civically resonant topic. Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across differences and stay firmly rooted in our local community. Come for the music, come for the poetry, come for the conversation.
Why “The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions”?
A symbol of growth and emergence, transformation and borderless migration, butterflies remind us that tiny shifts in one place can set profound change in motion. Butterflies also have a special resonance in Baltimore. You may or may not know that the city of Baltimore is sometimes referred to as a “Black Butterfly and White L.” According to Dr. Lawrence Brown of Morgan State University, “Baltimore’s hypersegregated neighborhoods experience radically different realities.” Typically, Black neighborhoods fan out to the east and west resembling the shape of a butterfly while white neighborhoods run down the center of the city in the shape of an “L.”
Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across difference and stay firmly rooted in our local community.
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