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: 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), Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize (2023), 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 (in the form of people and other living things): Everyone I have ever worked with including William Parker, Charles Burnham, Tomeka Reid, Henry Grimes, Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch, Marshall Allen, Ramsey Ameen, Cooper-Moore, Joelle Leandre, Joe Morris, every artist on this page, James Brandon Lewis, Anne Waldman, Joe Bonner, Donald Smith, Jason Hwang, Randall Horton, Howard Johnson, et. al; and everyone I never worked with including Cecil Taylor, Amina Claudine Myers, Billy Bang, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Saunders, Leroy Jenkins, Ray Nance, Stuff Smith, Regina Carter, India Cooke, Nicole Mitchell, Kaija Saariaho, Paul Hindemith, Bela Bartok, and every living being giving us glimpses of the possible.
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.
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: 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), Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize (2023), 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 (in the form of people and other living things): Everyone I have ever worked with including William Parker, Charles Burnham, Tomeka Reid, Henry Grimes, Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch, Marshall Allen, Ramsey Ameen, Cooper-Moore, Joelle Leandre, Joe Morris, every artist on this page, James Brandon Lewis, Anne Waldman, Joe Bonner, Donald Smith, Jason Hwang, Randall Horton, Howard Johnson, et. al; and everyone I never worked with including Cecil Taylor, Amina Claudine Myers, Billy Bang, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Saunders, Leroy Jenkins, Ray Nance, Stuff Smith, Regina Carter, India Cooke, Nicole Mitchell, Kaija Saariaho, Paul Hindemith, Bela Bartok, and every living being giving us glimpses of the possible.
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.
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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 |
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