FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2022
Contact: kelly@epitaph.com

WATCH LEYLA MCCALLA’S TINY DESK PERFORMANCE

FEATURING TRACKS FROM HER LATEST ALBUM  
‘BREAKING THE THERMOMETER’

This morning NPR Music has released their latest NPR Tiny Desk featuring Leyla McCalla which features intimate performance of her songs “Dodinin,” “Memory Song,” “Fort Dimanche” and “Nan Fon Bwa” from her latest album ‘Breaking The Thermometer,’ which NPR called “one of 2022's most compelling albums.” Watch the performance below. 
 
Leyla McCalla’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/20/1128713485/leyla-mccalla-tiny-desk-concert 
 
Leyla McCalla has had a whirlwind of a year sharing Breaking the Thermometer since its release in May. Throughout the spring and summer she toured the record extensively in the US and Canada, bringing this music to major festivals and spaces like Big Ears Festival, New Orleans Jazz Fest, Montreal Jazz and opening for Neko Case and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The National Symphony Orchestra commissioned and performed full orchestral arrangements of songs from the album at the stunning Kennedy Center, and just last week Leyla sang a beautiful rendition of “Summer’s End" as a part of You Got Gold, a celebration of John Prine's life at the Ryman alongside Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves and others. This week she returned to the Ryman, opening for Jason Isbell before heading to Carnegie Hall to perform with Our Native Daughters (Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah). Leyla and her quartet will finish up the year with a 3-week tour of the UK, Belgium and France and recently announced multiple dates with Paris Philharmonie in Spring of 2023. 
 
Born out of a multi-disciplinary theater project commissioned by Duke University, which acquired the complete Radio Haiti archives in 2016, ‘Breaking The Thermometer’ combines original compositions and traditional Haitian tunes with historical broadcasts and contemporary interviews to forge an immersive sonic journey through a half century of racial, social, and political unrest. The music is captivating, fueled by rich, sophisticated melodic work and intoxicating Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and the juxtaposition of voices—English and Kreyòl, personal and political, anecdotal and journalistic—is similarly entrancing, raising the dead as it shines a light on the enduring spirit of the Haitian people. 
 
In delving into the project, McCalla also found herself forced to grapple with her own experiences as a Haitian-American woman, unraveling layers of marginalization and generations of repression and resolve as she searched for a clearer vision of herself and her purpose. The result is at once a work of radical performance art, historical scholarship, and personal memoir, a wide-ranging and powerful meditation on family and democracy and free expression that couldn’t have arrived at a timelier moment. 

“The more I researched this project, the more I found myself examining my own sense of Haitian-ness,” McCalla reflects. “I spent a lot of time recalling my experiences visiting Haiti as a child, thinking deeply about the moments in my life when I felt very Haitian and the moments when I didn’t. In the end, the music and the stories here all brought me to a more nuanced understanding of both the country and myself.” 
 
McCalla will head to Europe this November and she will soon be announcing additional US, UK and Euro touring for 2023. All currently announced dates are listed below. 

Praise for ‘Breaking The Thermometer’:  

“ ‘Breaking the Thermometer’ is a deep dive into Haitian culture by a guide rediscovering her heritage along the way and exulting in the discovery.” – No Depression 
 
“Leyla McCalla has long been one of the most thoughtful figures working to trace American folk music’s lineage to other countries and continents.” – Bandcamp 
 
“...upbeat, with syncopated undercurrents of rara carnival rhythms. Meanwhile the lyrics, in Haitian Creole, lash out at anti-democratic forces” - New York Times 
 
“An ambitious, accomplished piece of work.” - Guardian UK, Best of The Year Thus Far  

“An exquisite distillation of hope and perseverance, mystery and humanity.” - MOJO 

“ “Le Bal est Fini” is as rockin’ as global music gets.” - Variety, Best of 2022 Thus Far 

“Leyla McCalla’s profound creativity asks for attention in his album and richly rewards it.” - PopMatters 
 
 
TOUR DATES 
10/20 - St. Louis, MO @ The Sheldon  
10/21 - 10/22 - Urbana, IL @ Champaign-Urbana Folk & Roots Festival 2022 
11/4 - New York, NY @ Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium w/ Our Native Daughters 
11/8 - Lyon, France @ Lyon National Opera 
11/9 - Lyon, France @ Lyon National Opera 
11/10 - Villejuif, France @ Romain Rolland Theater  
11/11 - Cenon, France @ Le Rocher de Palmer 
11/12 - Nantes, France @ La bouche d’air  
11/15 - Paris, France @ New Morning 
11/16 - Leuven, Belgium @ Het Depot 
11/17 - Roeselare, Belgium @ De Spil 
11/18 - Antwerp, Belgium @ De Roma 
11/20 - Fleurus, Belgium @ Bibliotheque Communale de Fleurus  
11/22 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Vondelkerk 
11/24 - Birmingham, UK @ Symphony Hall 
11/25 - London, UK @ Kings Place 
4/21/23 - Paris, France @ Philharmonie De Paris 
4/22/23 - Paris, France @ Philharmonie de Paris

Photo Credit: Noé Cugny

Listen + Order ‘Breaking The Thermometer’ 
 
1. Nan Fon Bwa 
2. Fort Dimanche 
3. Bon Appétit Messieurs 
4. Le Bal est Fini 
5. Dan Reken 
6. Dodinin 
7. Ekzile 
8. Pouki 
9. You Don’t Know Me 
10. Jean and Michele 
11. Vini Wè 
12. Artibonite 
13. Still Looking 
14. Memory Song 
15. Boukman’s Prayer 
 
https://leylamccalla.com/ 
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter 

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Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever is made possible, in part, with a grant from the MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; a grant from New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Baisley Powell Elebash Fund, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation; a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council; and a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. 

Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Duke Performances at Duke University, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, MDC Live Arts – Miami Dade College, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Special thanks to the Human Rights and Radio Haiti archives at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University for serving as the research site and partner on Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever, and to the Forum for Scholars and Publics. 
 
Explore the Radio Haiti digital archives here: https://repository.duke.edu/dc/radiohaiti 

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For More Info on Leyla McCalla, Contact: 
Kelly Kettering | ANTI- Records Publicity | kelly@epitaph.com