“Songs In Flight,” a cycle of art songs related to the Cornell-based project Freedom on the Move, has been nominated for a 2026 Grammy Award. The cycle’s composer, Shawn Okpebholo, is up for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Based on poems by College of Arts and Sciences alumna Tsitsi Ella Jaji, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ’08, Okpebholo’s songs bring to life individual stories preserved in more than 30,000 advertisements in the database of runaway slave ads.

Credit: Cedille Records/Photo by Elliot Mandel

The cycle, which premiered in January 2023 in New York, is available as a recording featuring singer and instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens, soprano Karen Slack, baritone Will Liverman, countertenor Reginald Mobley and pianist Paul Sanchez. Poets Crystal Simone Smith and Tyehimba Jess contributed to the song lyrics. 

“With this album, I’m working with the best of the best,” Okpebholo says in a trailer for the recording. “I’m pinching myself because I get to work with the most extraordinary artists.” 

The Freedom on the Move database puts a human face on history, said Ed Baptist, professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences and a principal investigator (PI) on the project, teaching us that ordinary people can “resist profoundly evil systems.”

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.