Seattle’s Most Influential People 2019: Common Ground Music Project Founder, Shontina Vernon
In addition, her Visionary Justice StoryLab earned Vernon a fellowship from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
By Gavin Borchert November 8, 2019
This article originally appeared in the November 2019 issue of Seattle magazine.
This article appears in print in the November 2019 issue, as part of the Most Influential People of the Year feature. Click here to subscribe.
Three years ago, Shontina Vernon took 11 other Seattle artists—in dance, music, spoken word and other arts—to Cuba to meet, learn from and collaborate with artists in that country. That trip served as the launch of her Common Ground Music Project, which works to advance social justice causes through cultural exchange. The project is just one of the platforms this multidisciplinary artist has created to address issues of racial, reproductive, gender and environmental justice through art; her Visionary Justice StoryLab, spotlighting queer artists and artists of color, earned Vernon a fellowship from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. You may have seen her theater works, which draw tellingly on her own life experience, performed in venues ranging from Seattle’s On the Boards to World Wide Words in Denmark; or perhaps watched her in the lead role of Nina Simone, another bravely outspoken activist-artist, in Christina Ham’s play Nina Simone: Four Women, staged by Seattle Rep this past spring.
Follow Us
From the Archives: Most Influential—Before That Was a Thing
Remembering the kind of leadership that built Washington—and still echoes today.
Washington state once had Dan Evans, a leader whose impact still endures, and who governed with a sort of principled presence that helped shape the soul of our region. A three-term governor and later U.S. senator, Evans embodied a kind of civic leadership that feels both mythic and arguably elusive now. He was pragmatic, optimistic,…
The Coach: Sonia Raman
The history-making coach leading the Seattle Storm into the future.
In the early 2000s, Sonia Raman was on the traditional track to a successful career in law, but coaching basketball kept bouncing back to her. A lifelong fan of the sport, Raman—who played at Tufts University and coached throughout her collegiate and post-grad career—eventually heeded the call, making a pivot that would change her life….
The Civic Spacemaker: Tommy Gregory
A next-gen curator improving your airport experience.
“I love the saying, ‘sleep when you are dead.’” Few embody it like Tommy Gregory—tireless artist, curator, and connector who seems to be everywhere at once, installing work, throwing receptions, or plotting the next show. Gregory joined the Port of Seattle as senior project manager in 2019, just as airport art collections were gaining global…
The Piano Teacher: Payam Khastkhodaei
The instructor rethinking the approach to music lessons.
When Payam Khastkhodaei began teaching piano to a family friend’s daughter in his Bothell home at 16, he relied on the same method he had been taught as a kid—classical songbooks, rigid practice, and pieces he never connected with. It didn’t take long to see she was losing interest. “I had learned from the Alfred…