Reimagine Virtual Candlelight Vigil
Wed. August 05
5:00pm - 6:30pm
This is a digital event. You should receive information in your ticket or from the host about how to join online.
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Reimagine has been hosting candlelight vigils since March 2020, the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to break down taboos and hold space for all that we've lost. This gathering features a conversation between authors and educators Emily Rapp Black and Sunita Puri. In addition, musical guests include jazz vocalist Vuyo Sotashe and pianist Chris Pattishall.
Emily Rapp Black is the bestselling author of five books. A former Fulbright scholar, Guggenheim Fellow, and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, she is Professor of Creative Writing at University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine. Her newest book, I Would Die If I Were You, explores how art can move us through moments of grief and loss while celebrating the spirit-lifting potential of all creative acts.
https://www.emilyrappblackauthor.com/
Dr. Sunita Puri is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, where she is the Director of the Inpatient Palliative Care Service. A 2025 Literature Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation, she is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, a critically acclaimed literary memoir examining her journey to the practice of palliative medicine, and her quest to help patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of serious illness.
Vuyo Sotashe and Chris Pattishall
To listen to vocalist Vuyo Sotashe and pianist Chris Pattishall is to be held by a practice of radical empathy, built upon over a decade of deep friendship and consistent collaboration. Together they make music with a hushed vulnerability, a quiet invocation of community in the midst of turbulent times. Seamlessly moving from the American masters of Duke Ellington and Nina Simone to South African Xhosa hymns and Stevie Wonder, Sotashe and Pattishall bring the healing power of music to the forefront. They released their debut EP, Invocation, in 2026. They have toured extensively, with sold out performances in Slovenia, Singapore, and China. Mainstays of the NYC music scene over the last decade, Vuyo and Chris have each contributed to a wide range of projects spanning jazz, gospel, theater and film.
Since moving to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, Vuyo Sotashe has performed with celebrated jazz legends including Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jimmy Heath, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Barry Harris, Esperanza Spalding and Winard Harper as well as renowned vocalist Cynthia Erivo. He has appeared at Montreux Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Fest, and Joy of Jazz, and Arcevia Jazz Festival. Described as "a bright tenor that can easily spring from sonorous depths to the full-bodied top of his impressive range" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Vuyo made his off-Broadway debut in the Public Theater's production of Black Light. He released his debut EP Invocations with Chris Pattishall in March 2026.
Chris Pattishall has established himself as "an expert at using the jazz tradition as a jumping off-point for experimentation" (JazzTimes) and his debut album Zodiac - a phantasmagorical rendering of the Zodiac Suite by pioneering pianist Mary Lou Williams - was called "a startling achievement" (NY Times) and “a hell of a debut album” (Stereogum). He is a featured performer on a number of film scores (including Everything Everywhere All At Once, Nightmare Alley and Knives Out) and he co-composed the score to the Emmy award-winning documentary Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, as well as extensive international touring. His work has been featured in exhibitions and installations at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Sharjah Biennial (UAE), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (California).
https://www.vuyosotashemusic.com/
https://www.chrispattishall.com/
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and – at our own pace – actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
