Sounding Home: a conversation with Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist, composer, playwright, and scholar, Somi

Sounding Home: a conversation with Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist, composer, playwright, and scholar, Somi 
Moderated by Dr. Dora N. Watkins, Teaching Assistant Professor and BSW Program Director; School of Social Work 
September 16, 2026
2:00-3:00 pm
Spurlock Museum, Knight Auditorium, 600 S Gregory St, Urbana | 1.0 CEU’s available 

Somi's Performance
September 17, 2026
7:30-9:00pm
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Colwell Playhouse | 1.5 CEU's available

Sounding Home holds two ideas simultaneously: home as something we inhabit and home as something we create, express, remember, and carry. What happens when sound becomes one of the ways we locate ourselves; in relationship to place, culture, history, other people, and our own becoming?

This dialogue will move through interconnected questions of making and carrying home; music as memory and cultural expression; migration, identity, and place-making; and the relationships and conditions that allow people and communities to flourish. Somi’s existing body of work provides a foundation for these questions, while her current project, What Does It Take to Bloom?, offers an opportunity to consider where those inquiries are taking her now. 

Somi will perform at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, September 17, 2026 at 7:30pm. If you would like to attend Somi's performance, we will have 15 complimentary tickets for SSW students and alum,

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