Compositions - Musicals

California Humanities Grant Awarded for "Harlem Voices"

To date, I have composed two musicals: Harlem Voices© and Harlem Voices: Revisited.

In collaboration with the Middletown Art Center in Middletown (MAC), CA, I will produce a series of 5 live performance revues. These performances will showcase the music and dialogue from the “Harlem Voices” and “Harlem Voices: Revisited” musicals, bringing the essence of these compositions to life. The performances, made possible by a California Humanities “Humanities for All Project Grant” $25 thousand matching grant award, will be held at the MAC in Middletown, the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake, and the Soper-Reese Theater in Lakeport in 2024 and 2025.

This highly sought-after and prestigious award recognizes the work the MAC does in the community and the sweeping artistic and social justice vision Lewis brings to my works. In addition to the music for each performance, I will facilitate critical discussions about race relations in the United States. “Harlem Voices” and “Harlem Voices: Revisited” are now available in paperback form on Amazon. The books feature QR codes embedded in the content so the reader can listen to recordings of the music as they read along. Look for those books and the final musical of the trilogy, “Harlem Voices: Legacy”, to be published by the end of 2025.

Harlem Voices©

Harlem Voices© is a 1920s-era musical that explores present-day issues of racism, LGBTQ issues, inept leadership, African-American military service in WWI, and racial profiling (among many other issues). It is about a brilliant young black vocalist who was traumatized by the Rosewood, FL massacre of her family members by the KKK. She is conflicted by falling in love with a white patron of the racially segregated club where she works in Harlem called the Black Jay Club. I wrote the “book” (play), libretto, and music... the entire creative product. The video shown below describes the main story of the piece. It should give you a good idea of the way I envision the look and feel of the musical to be. I created all the 3d modeled figures and music in the movie.
Clicking on the button below will take you to the special website devoted totally to Harlem Voices©. There, you will learn everything there is to know about the piece (MP3 recordings, scores, about the book, interviews, etc.) and how it is progressing.

Harlem Voices: Revisited

Harlem Voices - Revisited is the second of three musicals by Clovice A. Lewis, Jr. Harlem Voices: Revisited picks the up the Harlem Voices© story eight years later on August 1, 1943 and continues until the Fall of 1976. Many of the characters from the original Harlem Voices© rejoin the cast. New characters, some historical (such as Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, and Tuskegee Airmen), are presented as they navigate their way through WWII, segregation in the North, economic and financial inequities, systemic racism, the McCarthy era, the Vietnam war, and the Civil Rights era. Where Harlem Voices© told the story from a "personal" view of their challenges, Harlem Voices: Revisited tells the story from the perspective of the characters dealing with how their lives are effected by the broader social issues of the time. Because the second musical covers a longer time period we experience the deaths of many characters from the original musical and the maturation of their children. 

Another important subtheme of Harlem Voices: Revisited is how Belle's  optimism and joy of life mirrors the decline of Harlem from the height of its renaissance in the early 1930s to its fall into deterioration and neglect in the 1950s.  
Clicking on the button below will take you to the special website devoted totally to Harlem Voices©. There, you will learn everything there is to know about the piece (MP3 recordings, scores, about the book, interviews, etc.) and how it is progressing.