For those of you out there who know about cassette players, you know that the sound warps with each playback and record. But then it started to get like 10 and 12 layers of loops. It started off with just three or four layers. And so it was kind of this looping back and forth between two cassette players. Then play it back and try to play another melody or sing on top of that. I would sit there and play down a melody and record it.
It seemed like for two Christmases in a row, we got cassette players. It was kind of the Elmo doll of the late ‘70s. That sounds about right because I was born in 1970 and cassette players were really starting to become the thing to get kids at the time. But I found that my playtime on the instrument just became these whole sessions that would last for like two hours. We would just sit there maybe for five, ten minutes to just play this instrument. I would plunk on the keys and that’s what me and my sisters would do. It was just something that was like this cheap knock off. I think it might have come from a second hand store. It sounded like a Hammond, but it wasn’t a Hammond. It wasn’t even a Casio it was like this kind of organ. And in our home life, she had certain things that were already out in the living room ready to play. Even though she was the teacher to all of these kids, I was in that that group. My mom has run a daycare for over 55 years now. , whether it’s just the visceral idea of touching a keyboard and the sound just plunking out that is something that we all shared in our young childhood. It was just very organic and just a part of my playtime as a child. Valerie Coleman: I cannot say when it actually first hit me. I want to get back to how music first hit you. But I really want to talk to you as a composer. In that conversation, we were mostly focused on all of you as interpreters and as curators of exciting new repertoire for wind quintet. Oteri: It’s amazing that we talked to you and the other members of Imani Winds ten years ago. Produced and recorded by Brigid Pierce audio editing by Anthony Nievesįrank J. Via a Zoom Conference Call between Miami FL and New York NY Oteri in conversation with Valerie Coleman NewMusicBox interview with Valerie Colemanįrank J.So it’s my job to create music that allows that transformative power to happen.”
… I recognize that there are stories that are yet untold that if they were told, they would transform all those who would hear them.
#Music for writing how to
“I feel it necessary to tell their story, but also really just embrace this idea of how to walk in the world and inform people around me. “That’s just how I identify and it’s because of what my ancestors have gone through,” she explains. So the launch of Amplifying Voices seemed like a perfect opportunity to reconnect and have a conversation about her own music-her aesthetics, her inspiration, and what she hopes she can communicate to listeners. Valerie has recently been chosen to participate in the Metropolitan Opera / Lincoln Center Theater New Works program, a perfect fit for her given her commitment to storytelling through her music, no matter the idiom. Since then, these have become her primary artistic focus. In our first conversation with Valerie, we barely scratched the surface of her compositional activities. But what about Valerie Coleman, the composer? One of the most exciting aspects of Imani Winds is their commitment to new music from a diverse repertoire of composers, which makes sense given that they were founded by a composer. The seven composers selected thus far are Tania León ( the first individual composer NewMusicBox interviewed, in 1999), Tyshawn Sorey ( featured in NewMusicBox last year), Jessie Montgomery ( featured four years ago), Brian Raphael Nabors, Juan Pablo Contreras, Shelley Washington, and Valerie Coleman ( with whom we spoke a decade ago, regarding her maverick wind quintet, Imani Winds). Following a national call, eight American orchestras are leading consortium commissions for eight different composers. Earlier this year, New Music USA launched Amplifying Voices, a program promoting marginalized voices in the orchestral field.
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