About Pyeng
‘Pyeng’s music comes from the mind of a child of the east village. She is a modernist who can draw from traditional roots of her ancestry and the cubist abstraction of her father’s music to completely embody her own language and culture that is unique to herself.’
‘A true one of a kind who needs not to justify herself.’
– Derek Nievergelt, bassist/producer/engineer
About Pyeng
‘Pyeng’s music comes from the mind of a child of the east village. She is a modernist who can draw from traditional roots of her ancestry and the cubist abstraction of her father’s music to completely embody her own language and culture that is unique to herself.’
‘A true one of a kind who needs not to justify herself.’
– Derek Nievergelt, bassist/producer/engineer
‘Pyeng’s music comes from the mind of a child of the east village. She is a modernist who can draw from traditional roots of her ancestry and the cubist abstraction of her father’s music to completely embody her own language and culture that is unique to herself.’
‘A true one of a kind who needs not to justify herself.’
– Derek Nievergelt, bassist/producer/engineer
About Pyeng
Pyeng Threadgill is an American vocalist, composer, author, video artist, and voice and movement teacher. With a deep belief in the transformative power of music and movement, she creates what she calls New Porch Music. Drawing on the musical traditions of the African Diaspora—from Black American Folk and Soul to Jazz and improvisation—Pyeng uses her Porch Sessions to foster connected conversations, empowering audiences to reflect on their own life stories and identities for healing and growth.
As a recording artist, composer and bandleader Pyeng has recorded 4 solo albums and appeared as a guest on 5 compilations. The most recent of her projects, Head Full of Hair, Heart Full of Song, was created as both an album and multimedia project. It shines a light on hair, adornment and ancestry and the political as well as spiritual implications of race, hair and identity. Head Full of Hair is a surround sound multi-media experience intended to be a digital talisman for young Black women/nonbinary people to use as they navigate moving through the world.
‘It is a gorgeous album. Like a novel, a travelogue, and an intimate concert.’
– Daniel Alexander Jones, Writer/performance artist/educator
Prior to the release of Head Full of Hair, Heart Full of Song, Ms Threadgill was featured by the Mayor’s Office as a working musician on the cable news station NY1. Before that Pyeng began research on the dire circumstances of climate change and its links to systemic racism, unearthing a new song cycle, Songlines. Songlines: Singing The Land explores the foundational contributions of African and Indigenous people upon sustainability movements and the ways in which our inner physical body, or environment, is impacted by the outer environment.
In 2008 Pyeng was awarded a fellowship in Music Composition from New York Foundation for The Arts for her third solo album Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories. Portholes To A Love is a collection of compositions inspired by short stories by world renowned authors. These pieces traverse concepts of reality and magic, humanity and nature. Taking inspiration from writers such as Isabelle Allende, Jamaica Kincaid, Jumpa Lahiri and others, Pyeng absorbs their words to convey the love, pain and longing of being human.
With her two first albums “Sweet Home: The Music of Robert Johnson” and “Of The Air” (2004 and 2005 respectively), Threadgill became an emerging musical figure on the Blues and Jazz scene touring both nationally and internationally headlining music venues and festivals around the globe. She has headlined at Montreal Jazz Festival, Yoshi’s San Francisco, Banlieues Bleues, Cognac Blues Festival, The Sunset Sunside Jazz Club,Atlanta Jazz Festival, Blue Note Late Night Series, Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, The Jazz Standard, The Iridium, Detroit Institute for The Arts, San Sebastian Jazz Festival, Scullers, Earshot Jazz Festival, The Half Note in Greece as well as iconoclast downtown New York venues such as Rockwood Music Hall, Nublu and others.
In 2007 Pyeng was a featured artist in the music documentary “Retour A Goree” starring Senegalese vocalist/composer Youssou N’Dour. She later appeared at Montreux Jazz Festival with this project. As a guest artist Pyeng has appeared with artists such as Marc Cary, Urban Bush Women, Archie Shepp, hattie gossett, Contra Tiempo, Amina Claudine Myers and others. Most recently Ms Threadgill was awarded a grant from the Jerome Foundation. She is currently composing music for her next album based on the writing from her recent memoir Lost & Found: Finding The Power In Your Voice.
