2022 ACF Equity Summit: Lifting Up Our Youth
Part 3: PaviElle French Interview
Saturday, September 17, 2022
Walker West Music Academy
Produced by Claim Our Space
Each year, ACF hosts an Artist Equity Summit that centers music creators and examines themes related to equity that impact the field and beyond. Our theme in 2022 is “Lifting Up our Youth.”
This event is the culmination of artist PaviElle French’s residency with six St. Paul-based arts organizations working together as a group for the first time. Liberation! Lifting Up our Youth is PaviElle French’s vision, and comes out of our collective need and responsibility to empower our young people and give them a platform.
Featured in this video:
PaviElle French — Resident Artist, Liberation! Lifting up our Youth
PaviElle is an amazing interdisciplinary artist, Upper Midwest Emmy Award and Sage Award winner. She is known for her powerhouse vocals and performing with an equally powerful 6 piece band. PaviElle was voted as Minneapolis City Pages “Best R&B Vocalist of 2015”, her band was named one of First Avenue’s Best New Bands of 2015 and, was a featured artist on TPT’s “Lowertown Line”, 2015. PaviElle hails from Rondo, a historically Black neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. She honed her craft as a teenager at Penumbra Theatre and with collective, EduPoetic Enyerbrainment. Growing up in a family steeped in music, she says that she wants to make music that honors and represents the Black aesthetic. As a songwriter, PaviElle always has a way she wants her songs to “swing,” and it’s this free-style emotion, in the scatting and vocalizing, that brings a millennial’s heart-born, contemporary vision to a classic soul music sound.
Stanford Thompson — Vice Chair, ACF
Stanford Thompson is a musician and educator who serves as the Founder and Executive Director of Play On Philly and Founding Board Chairman of El Sistema USA and the National Instrumentalist Mentoring and Advancement Network. Recognized as a TED Fellow, Stanford believes that music is a powerful tool for positive personal and community change. Mr. Thompson serves on the faculty of the Global Leaders Program and regularly presents for major arts and business conferences, institutions, and stakeholders about leadership, entrepreneurship and social justice. As a principal of Goldsmith Strategies, he has guided the strategic development of dozens of organizations across the United States while collaborating with local and national initiatives to develop new strategies and programs that provide equitable access to the arts. As a professional trumpeter, Stanford has performed as a soloist and member with major orchestras around the world and continues to perform throughout the Philadelphia region. Stanford is a native of Atlanta, GA, a graduate of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Talent Development Program and holds degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory’s Sistema Fellows Program.
