The Year of Alice Coltrane
“Alice was ahead of her time, one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, and certainly one of the first female, black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio, and to release music on her own terms. There is something to be said about timing. It can take a moment for people to recognize where the energies are, where the weight is… But now people across all generations are finding their way to Alice’s music in a myriad of different ways. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes her music so powerful, but there’s something in her spirit, in her intention that is very clear – and people can feel that immediately.”
– Ravi Coltrane
“The Coltrane family & The Coltrane Home organization present ‘The Year of Alice’ through tributary music events, spiritual, educational programming and more. We are honored and delighted to offer insight into the legacy of my mother… Alice Turiya Coltrane. My mother engaged herself in the spiritual process known as God-realization. Her life on earth consolidated artistic expression, spiritual principles, and charitable giving. She emphasized selfless service that uplifted the giver as well as recipients of the giving. She understood well the relevance of all life in terms of universal consciousness.”
– Michelle Coltrane
Marking the inaugural presentation of the John & Alice Coltrane Home and Coltrane Family, The Year Of Alice was a series of multi-disciplinary events that ran between 2024 and 2025 and was focused on re-positioning Alice Coltrane’s enduring legacy as a musician, composer and spiritual leader and to salute her place in the pantheon in the history of modern music and culture.
The Year of Alice spanned 2024-2025 and featured previously unreleased music and reissues, brand new community programming, a multimedia museum exhibit, specially curated concerts, newly choreographed ballet works and more. All inspired by and celebrating the life and legacy of Alice Coltrane.
Alice Coltrane’s pioneering and trailblazing career has changed the course of history. She forged masterful creative works, created music that beams universal love and spirituality to anyone that is listening, and laid the groundwork for musicians for years to come to do the same. Partners across the United States from many different cultural disciplines came on board, and a slew of tributary music events, programming, concerts, and music releases took place to celebrate her life and legacy.
The Year of Alice also saw the restoration of Alice’s harp (by renowned Chicago-based instrument manufacturer Lyon & Healy) to peak performance condition. Gifted by John to Alice in 1967, the harp arrived at her doorstep shortly after his passing. This was Alice’s first harp – she had never played the instrument before – and the same one she recorded seminal works on, including Journey In Satchidananda, A Monastic Trio and countless others.
The instrument is on loan to Brandee Younger from the Coltrane family and was featured on special performances throughout the Year Of Alice.
Music Releases
Various catalog reissues were released throughout the Year Of Alice beginning with The Carnegie Hall Concert (Impulse! Records) a captivating performance recorded in 1971, which marked Alice Coltrane first show as a leader at the famed venue. This was followed by A Monastic Trio (UMe/Verve) and Eternity (Warner Bros).
An Oral History of Alice Coltrane
Michelle Coltrane and Brandee Younger joined forces for An Oral History of Alice Coltrane, a part-panel, part-performance program that featured oral histories and biographical stories about Alice Coltrane from her daughter, interweaved with performance and demonstrations from Brandee to bring the stories to life. These took place at the Center for Women’s History at the New York Historical Society, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Michigan, and were so well-received that more dates are being explored at other prestigious institutions across the country. Bard College and the Berkeley School of Music will be hosting An Oral History in the fall of 2025, and others will follow.
Concerts
Detroit and New York are cities that have deep importance and historical relevance in the life of Alice Coltrane – Detroit is where she lived her early life surrounded by the gospel churches of Detroit, and New York is where she shared her life with John Coltrane and shaped her musical career.
The 2024 Detroit Jazz Festival presented an ambitious musical event on opening night which was curated by Ravi Coltrane and featured some of his closest musical associates alongside string players culled from local orchestras including the Detroit Symphony. It was a world premiere performance and the first time Ravi Coltrane had undertaken a project of this magnitude in service to his mother’s work.
As festival president and artistic director Chris Collins articulated, the festival has sought “ to truly honor and celebrate the artists who have left an indelible mark on history, especially someone as deep as our Detroit sister Alice Coltrane. We must develop an accurate understanding of the gifts they left behind and build on those gifts with new perspectives, generation and artistry to propagate the living breathing jazz legacy and the artists as agents of inspiration.”
The culmination of Year Of Alice was an historic evening of music at the legendary Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. Ravi Coltrane and six trusted musical partners were joined by Alice Coltrane’s grandnephew Flying Lotus, Michelle Coltrane (leading the Sai Anantam Devotional Ensemble of 11 singers) and a 40-piece orchestra to showcase the dynamic breath and magnitude of Alice Coltrane’s artistic impact. The title of the concert “Cosmic Music: The Celestial Songs of Alice Coltrane” paid homage to Alice’s own1968 performance at Carnegie Hall, one of seven times she performed there during her lifetime.
Noted writer Hank Shteamer (Rolling Stone, New York Times) commented following the performance “A brilliant and moving spectacle at Carnegie Hall last night. Felt like the culmination of the long arc of Alice Coltrane’s overdue appreciation.”
ALONZO KING LINES BALLET
During its 2024-2025 season, the famed Alonzo King LINES Ballet company of San Francisco presented a world premiere dance work, choreographed by famed founder Alonzo King. Mesmerized by Coltrane’s music since he was a child, King choreographed one of his very first pieces to her music and used her 1971 iconic album Journey In Satchidananda as inspiration for this new choreography.
Hammer Museum- UCLA
In early 2025, the Hammer Museum at UCLA hosted Monument Eternal an Alice Coltrane-inspired exhibit across 10,000 square feet. The exhibition presented works by contemporary American artists paired with ephemera from Coltrane’s personal archive and featured a range of mediums including video, installation, listening stations, performance and sculpture together with Coltrane’s archival handwritten correspondence, unreleased audio recordings, and rarely seen video footage. Monument Eternal explored themes including spiritual transcendence, sonic innovation, and architectural intimacy to honor Coltrane’s cultural output and practice.
Kirtan Ceremony
The Integral Yoga Institute in Manhattan was founded by Alice Coltrane’s guru Sri Swami Satchidananda in 1966. Alice’s 1971 “Live At Carnegie Hall’ album was recorded as a benefit for the studio. On what would have been her 87th birthday, IYI hosted a musical Kirtan ceremony in honor of this relationship and history, presented by Michelle Coltrane and members of the Sai Anantam Devotional Ensemble entitled Divine Music: The Spiritual Journey of Alice Coltrane.
THE JOHN & ALICE COLTRANE HOME COMMUNITY PROGRAMMING
For the Year Of Alice, The John & Alice Coltrane Home expanded its community. Peppered throughout the year were lectures, performances, listening sessions and concerts that took place locally around Dix Hills but also at venues in Brooklyn such as Shapeshifter Plus and Rough Trade in Brooklyn, and in Manhattan such as the Jazz Museum of Harlem.
Literary Works of Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane-Turiyasangitananda wrote a devotional text and autobiography that traced and chronicled her spiritual evolution and philosophies of wisdom. Originally published in 1977, the book, entitled Monument Eternal, was re-released in 2025.
Help keep the Coltrane spirit alive.
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