Rev. Clovice Lewis has produced a wide range of works over a lifetime devoted to intellectual and artistic excellence. Justice and creativity is at the core of it all...
Anti-Racist - Clovice's commitment to countering racism, and all other forms of oppression, is expressed in a multitude of creative ways.
Musician - Clovice is a world-class composer and cellist whose music has been widely performed.
Theologian - In a career spanning over twenty years, Clovice has made profound contributions as a strident voice for justice and in preaching the gospel of the madness of human self-extinction.
Technologist - For over 35 years, Clovice has made innovative technological contributions through software design, inventions, and serial entrepreneurship.
Educator - Clovice was the first professor of Computer Music at UC Santa Barbara. Creative ways of presenting complex concepts is a hallmark of his approach towards education and training.
Musician - Clovice is a world-class composer and cellist whose music has been widely performed.
Theologian - In a career spanning over twenty years, Clovice has made profound contributions as a strident voice for justice and in preaching the gospel of the madness of human self-extinction.
Technologist - For over 35 years, Clovice has made innovative technological contributions through software design, inventions, and serial entrepreneurship.
Educator - Clovice was the first professor of Computer Music at UC Santa Barbara. Creative ways of presenting complex concepts is a hallmark of his approach towards education and training.
Purchasing Clovice's Creative Works, Products, and Services
Clovice's creative output is extensive... from symphonic music to mobile apps and most everything in between. Here is a listing with links to places where you can purchase his works, products, and services:
Jazzical Music - A Website with over 180 Musical Works - Scores, parts, and recordings with program notes
Harlem Voices© - The website for a trilogy of musicals with scores, parts, and recordings
Books by Rev. Clovice Lewis:
Summer - The latest Jazz Album
Music Lectures - A series of university-level lectures, workshops, and workshop on various musical topics
Anatomy of Hate: Lockheed and the VA (The Inner Workings of Systemic Racism in Corporate America) - Book and Website
Anatomy of Hate - Workshops
Church 2.0 - Consultation for Spiritual and Religious Organizations
Harlem Voices© - The website for a trilogy of musicals with scores, parts, and recordings
Books by Rev. Clovice Lewis:
- Harlem Voices© - the first musical of the "Harlem Voices" trilogy available from Amazon as a book. Use the embedded QR codes to listen to the music as you read along!
- Harlem Voices: Revisited© - the second musical of the "Harlem Voices" trilogy available from Amazon as a book. Use the embedded QR codes to listen to the music as you read along!
- Yearning for Justice - A collection of sermons About Race, Conscience, and Human Dignity (EBook and Printed Book available through Amazon)
- Theological Sightlines - A collection of Sermons About Theology and the Human Condition (EBook and Printed Book available through Amazon)
- On the Fence - A One Act Play about life in the United States as a young black man. (EBook available through Amazon)
Summer - The latest Jazz Album
Music Lectures - A series of university-level lectures, workshops, and workshop on various musical topics
Anatomy of Hate: Lockheed and the VA (The Inner Workings of Systemic Racism in Corporate America) - Book and Website
Anatomy of Hate - Workshops
Church 2.0 - Consultation for Spiritual and Religious Organizations
California Humanities Grants Suspended for all Ongoing and Future Projects
Our Harlem Voices Revue project, fiscally sponsored by the Middletown Art Center (MAC), received a $25,000 matching grant from California Humanities in April 2024. That funding, made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), helped us produce two powerful and moving performances that brought audiences to their feet.
THEN, THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPENED
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding—on which our California Humanities $25,000 matching grant depended—was indefinitely suspended on April 2, 2025. The Trump regime has moved to defund the National Endowment for the Arts entirely. Our grant, the backbone of this project, evaporated overnight! Though we’ve used part of it already, the remaining funds promised to us will likely never arrive. The final three performances, scheduled for May 30, May 31, and June 1, 2025, are now in jeopardy.
Despite this blow, we’ve decided to move forward.
We’ve already invested deeply in this project, and we’re contractually committed to our orchestra, vocal soloists, technicians, and venue. But we urgently need to raise $18,000 to honor those commitments and bring these final performances to life.
This is where you come in.
We’ve launched a GoFundMe campaign to keep Harlem Voices alive. These musicals are not just shows - they’re bold, beautiful acts of cultural resistance, telling stories that must be heard, especially in times like these.
Donate now on GoFundMe
Whether you can give $10 or $1,000, your support ensures that Black history, music, and artistic truth remain center stage - where they belong.
Thank you for believing in the power of the arts to bring people together, heal communities, and tell our stories.
THEN, THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPENED
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding—on which our California Humanities $25,000 matching grant depended—was indefinitely suspended on April 2, 2025. The Trump regime has moved to defund the National Endowment for the Arts entirely. Our grant, the backbone of this project, evaporated overnight! Though we’ve used part of it already, the remaining funds promised to us will likely never arrive. The final three performances, scheduled for May 30, May 31, and June 1, 2025, are now in jeopardy.
Despite this blow, we’ve decided to move forward.
We’ve already invested deeply in this project, and we’re contractually committed to our orchestra, vocal soloists, technicians, and venue. But we urgently need to raise $18,000 to honor those commitments and bring these final performances to life.
This is where you come in.
We’ve launched a GoFundMe campaign to keep Harlem Voices alive. These musicals are not just shows - they’re bold, beautiful acts of cultural resistance, telling stories that must be heard, especially in times like these.
Donate now on GoFundMe
Whether you can give $10 or $1,000, your support ensures that Black history, music, and artistic truth remain center stage - where they belong.
Thank you for believing in the power of the arts to bring people together, heal communities, and tell our stories.
California Humanities Grant Awarded for "Harlem Voices"
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Clovice Lewis is used to composing extensive and innovative orchestral music. He composed his first symphony at the age of 17. In 1977, at 21, Lewis composed a 45-minute cantata for solo female voice, chamber orchestra, synthesizer, percussion ensemble, and dancer about a young woman whose suicide was reported in the Los Angeles Times. He has also composed multiple symphonic works for soloists and symphonic works featured by orchestras around the United States, including a multi-movement symphonic piece called “The Score,” which was intended as the soundtrack for a movie that does not yet exist.
In 2017, Clovice Lewis embarked on a compositional journey that would tell the stories of the lives of black performers at a segregated nightclub in Harlem during the 1920s. This musical, “Harlem Voices,” was completed in 2019 while Lewis pursued a master’s degree in divinity. Following his ordination as a Unitarian Universalist minister in 2021, he composed the sequel to “Harlem Voices,” titled “Harlem Voices: Revisited.” This sequel, with ninety percent of its composition done in eight weeks, is a testament to Lewis’s vast creative abilities; as he wrote the books, music and lyrics, and orchestrations for both musicals. The two “Harlem Voices” musicals form a trilogy that spans over a hundred years of history, offering a unique perspective from the black American community. In collaboration with the Middletown Art Center in Middletown (MAC), CA, Clovice Lewis is set to produce a series of 5 live performance revues. These performances will showcase the music and dialogue from the “Harlem Voices” and “Harlem Voices: Revisited” musicals, bringing the essence of these compositions to life. The performances, made possible by a California Humanities “Humanities for All Project Grant” $25 thousand matching grant award, will be held at the MAC in Middletown, the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake, and the Soper-Reese Theater in Lakeport in 2024 and 2025. This highly sought-after and prestigious award recognizes the work the MAC does in the community and the sweeping artistic and social justice vision Lewis brings to his works. In addition to the music for each performance, Lewis will facilitate critical discussions about race relations in the United States. “Harlem Voices” and “Harlem Voices: Revisited” are now available in paperback form on Amazon. The books feature QR codes embedded in the content so the reader can listen to recordings of the music as they read along. Look for those books and the final musical of the trilogy, “Harlem Voices: Legacy”, to be published by the end of 2025. |
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New Books by Rev. Clovice Lewis
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"Harlem Voices©" and its sequel "Harlem Voices: Revisited©", are paperback books on Amazon. Five revue productions of the musicals have just been funded by the "Humanities for All Project" grant program of California Humanities to be performed later this year and 2025 in Lake County, California. Rev. Lewis said, "This award represents a tremendous boost to my career as a composer and an activist for social justice. It also provides much appreciated validation of the works I have created."
These two historically-inspired musicals immerse the audience in transformative performances, addressing systemic racism, LGBTQI+ issues, military service, and economic inequality from 1923 to the 1970s. Harlem Voices© is set in the 1920s. It is about a brilliant young black vocalist who was traumatized by the Rosewood, FL massacre of her family members by the KKK. She is conflicted by falling in love with a white patron of the racially segregated club where she works in Harlem called the Black Jay Club. The time frame of Harlem Voices© is from January 4, 1923 through March 25, 1935. Harlem Voices - Revisited© picks up the Harlem Voices© story eight years later. Many of the characters from the original Harlem Voices© rejoin the cast. New characters, some historical (such as Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, and Tuskegee Airmen), are presented as they navigate their way through WWII, segregation in the North, economic and financial inequities, systemic racism, the McCarthy era, the Vietnam war, and the Civil Rights era. The time frame of Harlem Voices: Revisited© is from August 1, 1943 through 1976. You can read the text, then use the QR codes embedded in the book to listen to the songs. The lyrics are included, as well as piano reductions of the scores for musicians. Lewis' intention is to turn the process of producing and distributing new musicals on its head, so please consider purchasing the books to help me fund this revolution. Click here to purchase the books on Amazon. |
Click here to listen to a powerful song called "The Night They Burned Rosewood" from the original "Harlem Voices" musical.
Click here to listen to a 60's-inspired song about the need for social change called "A Better World" from the "Harlem Voices: Revisited" musical.
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New Public Addresses by Rev. Clovice Lewis
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This is a video of Rev. Clovice Lewis introducing the Middletown Art Center's (MAC) Juneteenth celebration in 2024. The MAC event on Juneteenth includes a panel discussion of what the celebration means to African Americans in the rural Northern California county of Lake. In his introduction, Lewis touched on a few issues the panel might discuss, such as police brutality and racial profiling, and the continuing disenfranchisement of Black Americans in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Ruling that allows for the implementation of laws and practices, such as racial gerrymandering, that restrict voting access, disproportionately affecting minority communities and undermining the protections that the VRA had provided for decades.
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Rev. Clovice Lewis offered a sermon called “Change” at the April 21, 2024, Unitarian Universalist of Lake County service. Lewis’ sermon provides a poignant exploration of the complexities surrounding societal change, delving into the psychological, social, and personal impacts of evolving circumstances. Lewis examines the challenges of perceiving gradual threats, highlighting how cognitive biases and societal divisions can hinder collective action. Through personal anecdotes and societal observations, he portrays the debilitating effects of systemic injustices, particularly on marginalized communities. Rev. Lewis and his wife, Carol’s, decision to immigrate to Panama underscores their sense of disillusionment with the current state of our country, fueled by a desire for personal safety and a belief in the necessity of collective transformation. Overall, he offers a compelling call to action to confront and transcend societal upheaval and oppression.
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This speech was delivered by Clovice A. Lewis, Jr. at the Juneteenth celebration sponsored by the Middletown Art Center in Middletown, California on June 19, 2023.
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How To Order Services From Rev. Clovice Lewis
Services for Spiritual and Religious Organizations
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Rev. Clovice Lewis provides the following services for spiritual and religious organizations:
Pulpit Supply - Dynamic, thought-provoking services that challenge you to dive deeply into UU Principles. "Church 2.0" Consultation - How to future-proof your spiritual organization in uncertain times. Diversity/Sensitivity Training - Unique, powerful programs using Rev. Lewis' "Harlem Voices" musicals. Click on the picture to the right for a detailed description of the services Rev. Lewis offers to spiritual and religious organizations. |
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Services for Business and Academic Organizations
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Drawing on a vast background as a serial entrepreneur, social activist, and educator, Rev. Clovice Lewis provides the following services for business and academic organizations:
Workshops and seminars - Workshops on topics ranging from graduate level music education to business. Diversity/Sensitivity Training - Unique, powerful programs using Rev. Lewis' theatrical work entitled "On The Fence" Click on the picture to the left for a detailed description of the services Rev. Lewis offers to business and academic organizations. |
Two New Movies From Harlem Voices: Revisited
Harlem Voices© is a musical by Rev. Clovice A. Lewis, Jr., that is set in the 1920s. It is the first of three musicals dealing with Harlem, NY from 1923 through the present day. Harlem Voices: Revisited is the second musical. It picks the up the Harlem Voices© story eight years later on August 1, 1943 and continues until the Fall of 1976.
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Hold It As You Would the Sand , from Harlem Voices: Revisited, is sung by the 23 year-old Susan Fontenot as a wedding gift for her brother Phillipe and his wife Bridgette. Her performance takes place at the reception in the Pantheon dance hall in 1956. Maurice, Susan Wright, Samuel, Evan, Belle, Andrés, Marie, Susan Fontenot, Mark Mercer, Lt. Colonel Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. and General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. and others are in attendance.
This song was recorded by Stephanie Rodriguez, a Singer/Vocal Arranger from Argentina. I thank her for bringing a great human voice to the songs of “Harlem Voices”. |
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This is a video created from "Harlem Voices: Revisited". It is the second of two sequels to the original "Harlem Voices" musical, which was completed in 2019. The year is 1965. In this scene Susan Fontenot (Belle and Andrés daughter) sings for the family’s dear friend, Maurice Siwel, who conducts her and the Pantheon Club orchestra for the last time at his farewell celebration. This song reflects Susan’s protest against the Vietnam war and her progressively “Hippie” outlook on life.
This song was also recorded by Stephanie Rodriguez. |
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Other Books by Rev. Clovice Lewis
Click on the book cover to order ebook or paperback versions of "Theological Sightlines" from Amazon.
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Click on the book cover to order ebook or paperback versions of "Yearning for Justice" from Amazon.
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"On the Fence" eBook
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The Kindle Book of my One Act Play "On The Fence" is available for worldwide distribution from Amazon. This play was written a long time ago, but I am publishing it now because it illuminates two things: 1) what it was like 44 years ago to be "kindly oppressed" as a young black man in the United States and 2) how little has changed. I hope you purchase "On The Fence" and benefit from reading it. If anyone out there wants to perform this play, please let me know. I would love to see it on stage!
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At Bookstores Now!
My two books: "Yearning for Justice" and "Theological Sightlines" are available at local bookstores in Mendocino and Lake Counties.
1. Watershed Books - 305 N Main St, Lakeport, CA 95453
2. The Mendocino Book Company - 102 S School St, Ukiah, CA 95482
1. Watershed Books - 305 N Main St, Lakeport, CA 95453
2. The Mendocino Book Company - 102 S School St, Ukiah, CA 95482
You Can Now Support Clovice on Patreon!
Creating multiple and diverse works takes time away from pursuing secure sources of income (jobs). Clovice has been transitioning from being a "Technologist" to becoming a full time "Artist and Social Justice Activist". Having no assured minimum income makes this vital work much more difficult. Please consider helping by donating money to this cause. Click here to make a donation on Clovice's Patreon page. √
A Word From Rev. Clovice Lewis
This website is all about my passions, which are summed up in one word... creativity. That is what drives everything I do. It is, in an essential way, my religion. I tell people I do this one thing (create) many different ways. Whether expressed in music, writing, programming, aviation, teaching, modeling and animation, or in business, my primary approach is always through the lens of creativity to all of these activities. I hope this site inspires you to do the same. Please contact me if you'd like to collaborate on projects. I am always open to that. Welcome to my world!
