There’s such a beautiful, haunting quality to Leyla McCalla’s music. On Wednesday, Nashville’s innovative chamber ensemble chatterbird will partner with this engaging Haitian-American songwriter and cellist (pictured above, photo by Noé Cugny) to “creatively reimagine” her 2014 album Vari-Colored Songs: a tribute to the poetry of Langston Hughes. Billed as “a celebration of the complexity of Black culture and identity, and a tribute to the legacy of poet and thinker Langston Hughes,” McCalla’s record draws inspiration from both American folk music and the traditional sounds of her parents’ native Haiti. McCalla appears at NMAAM in advance of her appearance at next week’s sold-out Big Ears Festival in Knoxville. Her new album Breaking the Thermometer, available May 6, explores the legacy of Radio Haiti, a radio station that stood up to oppression and dared to report the news in Haitian Kreyòl. Fascinating stuff. Visit chatterbird.org to learn more. 7:30 p.m. at the National Museum of African American Music’s Roots Theater, 510 Broadway AMY STUMPFL