For generations, 20th century Black American artists have ventured from home to find new self-expression among Nordic creative communities in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. Here they found “hipper” intellectual spaces for bringing all people together through music. In this spirit, vocalist Candice Hoyes releases a unique arrangement of the Swedish traditional song that was notably recorded by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra with vocalist Alice Babs, released in 1978.
Hoyes’s version is arranged for soprano and jazz octet by GRAMMY-winner Ted Nash and features lyrics Hoyes wrote reflecting on the pivotal importance of Black ancestral history in 2025. Hoyes remarks, ‘My single “Far Away Star’ is a tribute to Ellington, and it is a tribute to free expression and justice that is as eternal as the North Star.”
Hoyes was awarded a 2025 Du Bois Fellowship, and has researched music forged by Josephine Baker, Abbey Lincoln, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald and more. Hoyes’s recent performances include Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall (NYC), the Kennedy Center (DC), La Petite Halle (Paris), Boisdale of Canary Wharf (London), Detroit Symphony, and Millenium Park (Chicago).
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