Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship and a November born Scorpio. Bamuthi is currently at work on commissions for Yale University, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera, The Minnesota Orchestra, and the Washington National Opera as well as a new collaboration with NYC Ballet Artistic Director Wendy Whelan set to premiere at Lincoln Center. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center.
In pursuit of affirmations of Black life in the public realm, Bamuthi co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and created the installation “Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos” for Creative Time. Joseph’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His newest opera, “Watch Night”, will premiere in New York’s Perelman Center under the direction of Bill T. Jones in the Fall of 2023. His piece “The Just and the Blind” investigates the fatherhood in the age of mass incarceration, and premiered at a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. Bamuthi is currently at work on commissions for Yale University, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera, The Minnesota Orchestra, and the Washington National Opera as well as a new collaboration with NYC Ballet Artistic Director Wendy Whelan set to premiere at Lincoln Center.
An emergent onscreen talent, he is among the featured performers in HBO’s screen adaptation of “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehesi Coates. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center. A proud alumnus of Morehouse College, Bamuthi received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the California College of Arts in the Spring of 2022.