“Threadgill unearths the sultriness, melancholy and ebullience of Johnson’s Delta blues and remodels his music for the 21st century”
-John Murph, Jazztimes
PROJECTS
The Lost & Found Experience
“Lost & Found": Finding The Power In Your Voice” Performance & Reading
Pyeng Threadgill, vocals & keys; Elias Meister on guitar, Allison Miller on drums, Ksenia Vasileka on bass and Amma Whatt on vocals.
Growing up in the 1980s, in the heart of New York City's downtown music and art scene became fertile ground for seeds of creativity, doubt, and eventual empowerment for Pyeng Threadgill—as expressed through Lost & Found: Finding the Power in Your Voice, a collection of personal essays, poetry, and prose. Threadgill offers the reader various entryways to witness the magnificence and fragility of our voices and of our lives. As a performing professional vocalist, songwriter, recording artist, and bandleader, she began Lost & Found during the pandemic—born from many years of teaching voice, the Alexander Technique, and practicing meditation and meditative movement.
From motherhood to travel, from ancestry to the body—evolving from a passionate performer to injured performer, from voice student to voice and movement teacher—Lost & Found examines the visceral and ephemeral experiences of the voice, for the body and for oneself in the world, as both a spiritual and political act.
Bessie, Billie & Bob
Pyeng Threadgill/Songlines Project
“I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate”
Pyeng Threadgill, vocals; Howard Fishman, guitar.
Bessie, Billie & Bob is a duo project and musical homage to Blues legend Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Robert Johnson. Featuring voice and guitar these sets focus on the often contradictory inner and outer lives of Black folks during the early 1900’s.
“On & On”
Pyeng Threadgill (vocals/keyboard/composition), Tyler Wood (B3) and Jan Van Voorst Van Beest
The Songlines Project is a 3-7 piece group which developed out of the same titled song cycle “Songlines: Singing The Land”. Named after the Aboriginal concept in which the First Nations people of Australia sing, dance and create art as a form of mapping the landscape. In its full presentation this project features 4 vocalists, keyboard, 2 guitarists and drums. The compositions for Songlines delve into the often underrepresented voices of African and Indigenous people, their life philosophies and connections to the natural world.
Of The Air Trio
The Of The Air Trio is a trio featuring voice, guitar and drums. This project began after being invited to perform at the Brooklyn Zen Center in 2011. Built upon a process of re examining musical composition through improvisation, expansion and contraction. Using paired down instrumentation each player seeks to magnify and at the same time distill the music through the nuance and texture of their individual voice/instrument.
Rabbit’s Foot
Rabbit’s Foot is a trio founded by myself, Brandon Terzic (Alsarah & The Nubatones) on oud and ngoni and Tim Keiper (David Byrne American Utopia, Vieux Farka Toure, Cyro Baptista) on calabash. Named for the magical and mythological talisman, this project is a call and response between the deserts of Morocco, West Africa and the Mississippi Delta. Rabbit’s Foot relies on weaving rhythms and improvisation to support each song’s story.
“An Orbit of Skirts”
Pyeng Threadgill (vocals/composition), Evan Pazner (drums) and John Shannon (guitar).
“Trav’lin All Alone”
Pyeng Threadgill (vocals), Brandon Terzic (oud/ngoni) and TIm Keiper (calabash).
SOLO ALBUMS
“It is a gorgeous album. Like a novel,
a travelogue, and an intimate concert”
- Daniel Alexander Jones, writer/performance artist/educator
Head Full of Hair, Heart Full of Song
In her fourth solo album and multimedia project entitled "Head Full of Hair, Heart Full of Song", Ms. Threadgill shines a light on hair, adornment, and ancestry, and the power, pleasure and pain therein.
Listen to "Head Full of Hair, Heart Full of Song" (2018, Self Release) by Pyeng Threadgill on @Bandcamp
Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories
Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories is a collection of compositions based on short stories by well renowned authors. From Isabel Allende to Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri to Bruno Schulz, these songs explore the stretches of reality and magic, humanity and nature.
Listen to "Portholes to a Love & Other Short Stories" (2008, Pyeng Threadgill) by Pyeng Threadgill on @AppleMusic.
Of The Air
Of The Air is the first recorded solo album of Ms Threadgill’s original songwriting. It features two cover songs. The first is the acclaimed hit “Close To Me” by The Cure and the second is Fats Waller’s classic “Jitterbug Waltz” with original verses by Pyeng and choruses by the late Abbey Lincoln.
Sweet Home, The Music of Robert Johnson
Pyeng Threadgill’s debut album is an ode to the father of the Blues, guitarist and composer, Robert Johnson. Released in 2004, this album features a large cast of performers who travel from Blues to Jazz, Ring Shouts to Reggae.
Listen to "Of the Air" (2005, Random Chance Records) by Pyeng Threadgill on @AppleMusic.
Listen to "Sweet Home - The Music of Robert Johnson" (2004, Random Chance Records) by Pyeng Threadgill on @AppleMusic.