The musical SLĀV that premiered last week at the Montreal International Jazz Festival is billed as a “tribute to music as a tool for resilience and emancipation.”

But so far it has succeeded in highlighting art as an instrument of division, with protesters gathering outside shows, patrons entering under the protection of police and one festival performer this week cancelling his concert in protest.

SLĀV has run into trouble because it is a show based on slave songs from the American South, conceived by a white director and singer and performed by a predominantly white cast.

The American singer Moses Sumney, who is black, announced on Twitter Monday night that he was pulling out of his festival concert, which had been scheduled for Tuesday night. Instead he chose to play two discounted shows at an off-festival Montreal venue.

Sumney called SLĀV “hegemonic, appropriative and neo-imperialistic,” in a letter to festival organizers announcing his cancellation, posted to his website Tuesday.

“The point you are missing is that there is no context in which white people performing black slave songs is okay. Especially not while they are dressed like poor field workers or cotton pickers. Especially not while they are directed by a white director and in a theater charging loads of money,” he wrote.

“This kind of black imitation is very reminiscent of blackface minstrel shows. The only thing missing is black paint.”