Sound artist Fay Victor presents Faith, The Gift, an expanded eight-movement work of original music, word, and movement dedicated to the artist’s mother, Faith Evangeline Susannah Victor, whom the artist lost at just nineteen years old.
A note from the artist:
“This tapestry of sound is for her, what she meant to those she left behind, and how I, her daughter, have chosen to take the most life altering event and still see and feel the many gifts she gave. I want to share about how amazing she was, how lucky I felt to have her as a mom, although our time together was short.
Faith, The Gift is also a commentary on the impact of losing someone you love through gunfire, the larger impact of a violent society, and how easy it is to take a life. We all need to see that every life taken by a bullet or any other violent means — a life ending one minute to the next — has a rippling effect that permeates the lives of those left behind, reverberating throughout their entire lives. Every Single Day.” – Fay Victor
“She’s essentially invented her own hybrid of song and spoken word, a scat style for today’s avant-garde.” – The New York Times
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
This performance was made possible by the Jazz Gallery’s George Wein Fellowship.
Fay Victor is a sound artist/bandleader that uses performance, improvisation and composition to examine representations of modern life and blackness. Victor has released thirteen critically acclaimed albums as a leader, has performed with luminaries such as Gary Bartz, Archie Schepp, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey, Randy Weston, Misha Mengelberg, Roswell Rudd, and Moor Mother. Victor’s performance highlights include The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), The Hammer Museum (LA), The Kolner Philharmonie (Germany), Symphony Space (NY), The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), The Kennedy Center (Wash. DC), The Big Ears Festival (Knoxville, TN), and the Bimhuis (Amsterdam, Netherlands).
Victor is a member of the esteemed new music ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble and as a composer. Victor’s work has been performed on stages in Berlin, New York, Miami, Bangkok, Mexico City, Glasgow, London and Boston. An esteemed reputation as an educator, Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School in NYC in addition to teaching clinics and masterclasses around the world. In Spring 2025, Victor was a visiting professor at Harvard University in the Department of Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry. Moreover, Victor is the Board chair for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, an initiative of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music to fund black women/non-binary jazz leaders of the present and future. Faith, The Gift — a concert length piece in tribute to Victor’s mother — premiered in April 2026 .
