Siren Xypher, Mara Rosenbloom (p), Kyoko Kitamura (v), Melanie Dyer (vla), Bettye Saar's Mystic Chart for an Unemployed Sorceress (based on the poem by Patricia Spears Jones.). Comp/Arr. MDyer. Jazz Poetry Month/City of Asylum Pittsburgh PA. 5.28.23
I am a classically-trained violist who found freedom of artistic expression in creative improvisation and composition, visual art and poetry performance. These disciplines and mediums give me a means of exploring sonic language and possibility, and of reflecting and responding to lived and learned experience as a Black woman moving through 20th and 21st c. zeitgeists.
Current Projects: WeFreeStrings, The Incalculable Likelihood of Being, The Dead Lecturers w James Brandon Lewis (ts), Thomas Sayers Ellis (poet) & Alexis Marcelo (p), Siren Xypher w Mara Rosenbloom (p) & Kyoko Kitamura (v), Radical Reversal w the poet Randall Horton & Devin Brahja Waldman (as/composer), Eleven O'Five w Claire de Brunner (bsn) & Virg Dzurinko (p).
Awards/Recognition: NYSCA Support for Artists (2024), AFA Vision Artist (2023), Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize (2023), New Music USA (2018/ '21), Chamber Music America (2019/'22), Jazz Road South Arts (2022), Foundation for Contemporary Arts/Emergency Grant (2022), American Composers Forum/Innova (2022), Chicago Jazz String Summit (2020) live trio performance video chosen for exhibition in The Long Dream, Nov 7, 2020 - Jan 17, 2021 at the Museum of Contemporary Arts/Chicago.
Inspirations: Living Beings
Selected Festivals/Venues: Vision Festival (NYC), Edgefest (Ann Arbor MI), Festival Sons d'hiver (Paris FR), Basquiat Soundtracks (Paris FR), Detroit Jazz Festival, Many Colors of A Woman (CT), Jazz em Agosto (Lisboa Portugal), Jazz Poetry Month/City of Asylum (Pittsburgh PA), Lincoln Center/Hearst Plaza (NYC), Chicago Jazz String Summit, Elastic Arts (Chicago IL) Connolly’s Stardust Lounge/Boston MA, St. Nick’s Pub/Harlem NY.