Digital Residency: Tunde Olaniran
Flint-based musician and activist Tunde Olaniran will activate a dynamic residency that features art-making across disciplines, community collaboration and co-creation, emergent technologies, and video animation.
New Single Release
Coming Friday, November 13, 2020, WDWHI (“WE DON’T WANNA HEAR IT”) is the first of four singles from Tunde’s forthcoming full-length album to be released during their Digital Artist Residency with UMS.
Learn more about its inspiration and roots in Motown Soul, Swedish pop, and PC Music.
Pre-add WDWHI to your Apple Music or Spotify library
Friday 11/13 at 5:30 pm ET, join Tunde in POP BREAKDOWN — a conversation about the social, racial, cultural intersections of pop music and performance with Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond), Siena Liggins, and Olly Alexander (Years & Years).
Residency Support
Supporting Sponsors
Joe Malcoun and Caitlin Klein
Julia Darlow and John O’Meara
Anne and Paul Glendon
Norman and Debbie Herbert
Patron Sponsors
Stephen and Rosamund Forrest
Beverley and Gerson Geltner
Susan and Richard Gutow
James and Nancy Stanley
Funded in part by
UMS Sustaining Directors
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
About the Artist
Born in Nigeria, Flint-based performer and activist Tunde Olaniran is a beloved fixture of the Detroit music scene and first got to know UMS in February 2019, when they hosted a performance by local musicians and performing artists as part of Yo-Yo Ma’s Day of Action focused on the Flint community. They spent part of the 2019/20 season as UMS’s research residency artist, where they focused on creating an experimental film series that would blend performance, music, and installation art. From that project, they developed the idea for a new experimental LP release — a series of modular, participatory, and experimental performance works that will be released over the course of the next season. Olaniran will explore art-making across disciplines and technologies, community collaboration and co-creation, emergent technologies, and social justice through this residency.
“Artists are experiencing a continuum of challenges and opportunities to their process. Inside and through incredible social upheavals, reawakenings, and uncoverings, the emotional lives and needs of an audience (as well as the artist) still exist.
I’m trying to explore how artists can show up right now, without assuming we are the representative or surrogate for any movement, but still reflecting the emotions that have the potential to exist inside of any particular moment. My question is how do our performances hold and reflect emotionality inside of virtual containers that aren’t particularly new, but hold a much different weight and meaning for audiences right now?”
Visit Tunde’s website and follow them on:
Listen to Tunde’s recordings on:
Upcoming Events
Events coming soon.
Explore More
Meet the full Digital Artist Residency cohort:
Wendell Pierce | Tarek Yamani & Spektral Quartet | Tunde Olaniran | Cleo Parker Robinson | Brian Lobel & Friends | Joyce DiDonato