Banners at McNeese Presents a Performance by Leyla McCalla

As part of the Banners 2020 Cultural Season at McNeese State University, Haitian-American artist Leyla McCalla will perform at 7 p.m. March 13 in historic F.G. Bulber Auditorium.

A founding member of Our Native Daughters and cellist with the Grammy award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, Leyla McCalla has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience and vibrates with three centuries of history.

Born in New York City to Haitian emigrant parents, McCalla was immersed in a meld of cultures from an early age. As a teenager, she relocated to Accra, Ghana, for two years before returning to the states to study cello performance and chamber music at New York University.

Armed with Bach’s “Cello Suites,” McCalla left New York to play cello on the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Singing in French, Haitian Creole and English and playing cello, tenor banjo and guitar, her move allowed her to connect more viscerally to historical Haitian Creole resilience and musical expression.

Deeply influenced by traditional Creole, Cajun and Haitian music, as well as by American jazz and folk, McCalla’s music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful and witty.

Tickets are $20 for adults, $5 for students under 18 and free for McNeese and Sowela students with current IDs.

Banners is supported by ticket sales, memberships, corporate sponsors and grants. For more information about the program or to get tickets, visit the Banners website at www.banners.org or call the Banners office at 337-475-5123.

Persons needing accommodations as provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act should contact the ADA Coordinator at 337-475-5428, voice; 337-456-5960, fax; 337-562-4227, TDD/TTY, hearing impaired or by email at cdo@mcneese.edu.