M³ DEEPER DIVES
TOWARDS GENDER LIBERATION IN THE COMMUNITY
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2022
2pm ET - 3:30pm ET
Panelists
Caroline Davis
Mobile since her birth in Singapore, Caroline Davis’ music covers a wide range of styles, owed to her constantly shifting environment as a child. Her albums as a leader include Live Work & Play (2012), Doors: Chicago Storylines (2015), My Tree’s Afterglow (2017), Heart Tonic (2018), Alula (2019), Persona’s Anthems (2019), My Tree’s Where the Grace Is (2021), and Portals’ Mourning, Volume 1 (2021), featuring her saxophone, flute, and vocal expressions. She won the Downbeat Critic's Poll “Rising Star Alto Saxophonist” in 2018. Davis has worked with Lee Konitz, Angelica Sanchez, The Femme Jam, Matt Mitchell, Terry Riley, Miles Okazaki, Thana Alexa, and Billy Kaye. Davis has been a composer-in-residence at the esteemed MacDowell Colony, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship recipient, a CMA Performance Plus Grant awardee, and composed commissions for Arco Collaborative and the MAP Fund. Her compositional practice integrates cognitive science with an emphasis on somatic healing, integrated with her Ph.D work in Music Cognition. Davis is an advocate for social justice in the realm of gender, expressed in a co-taught Jazz & Gender course at The New School, as well as in the abolitionist movement.
Jen Shyu
(M³ Co-founder) – Guggenheim Fellow, USA Fellow, Doris Duke Artist, multilingual vocalist-composer-multi-instrumentalist-dancer JEN SHYU is “one of the most creative vocalists in contemporary improvised music” (The Nation). Born in Peoria, Illinois, to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrants, she’s produced eight albums, performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Theater of Korea, Rubin Museum, was named Downbeat’s 2017 Rising Star Female Vocalist, and is a Fulbright scholar speaking 10 languages. Her Song of Silver Geese was among New York Times’ “Best Albums of 2017.” She’s currently touring her third solo production Zero Grasses (commissioned by John Zorn) across all 50 states and has received wide critical acclaim for her latest album Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses, with “When I Have Power” on Nate Chinen’s “Best Songs of 2021” list for NPR. She is also a Paul Simon Music Fellows Guest Artist and a Steinway Artist.
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Sara Serpa
(M³ Co-founder) – Lisbon, Portugal native Sara Serpa is a vocalist-composer and improviser who implements a unique instrumental approach to her vocal style. Recognized for her distinctive wordless singing, Serpa has been immersed in the field of jazz, improvised and experimental music since first arriving in New York in 2008. Described by the New York Times as “a singer of silvery poise and cosmopolitan outlook”, Serpa started her career with jazz luminaries such as Grammy-nominated pianist Danilo Perez, and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow pianist Ran Blake. As a leader, she has produced and released ten albums; the latest being Recognition, an interdisciplinary project that combines film with live music, in collaboration with Zeena Parkins, Mark Turner and David Virelles. Serpa was voted #1 Vocals of the Year by the 2020 NPR Jazz Critics Poll, Musician of the Year 2020 by Portuguese magazine Jazz.pt and Rising Star 2019 by the Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll. Serpa currently teaches at The New School, New Jersey City University and is Artist-In-Residence at Park Avenue Armory.
Shanta Nurullah
Shanta Nurullah makes music primarily on sitar, bass and mbira, and works as a storyteller and teaching artist. She co-founded the all-women's groups Sojourner and Samana, and currently leads the ensemble Sitarsys. A member of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), she performs with its Great Black Music Ensemble and has performed and recorded with AACM members Nicole Mitchell and Dee Alexander. A 2021 3Arts awardee, Shanta also received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and the Zora Neale Hurston Award from the National Association of Black Storytellers.
Fay Victor
Fay Victor is a sound artist and bandleader that uses performance, improvisation and composition to examine representations of modern life and blackness. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Fay’s ‘everything is everything’ creative aesthetic permeates her working approach to the vocal instrument. Fay has released eleven critically acclaimed albums as a leader, including her latest release,“WE’VE HAD ENOUGH!” with her improvising quartet SoundNoiseFUNK (ESP-Disk) in October 2020 and has performed with luminaries such as Gary Bartz, Archie Schepp, Nicole Mitchell, Randy Weston and Amina Claudine Myers. Victor is on the faculty of the New School and RocNation(LIU) and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Anjna Swaminathan
Anjna Swaminathan is a queer multidisciplinary artist, composer, violinist, vocalist, writer, theatre artist, and dramaturg. As an artist with a passion for sociopolitical work, community building, and critical consciousness, their artistic practice is an extension of their activist spirit. Informed by rigorous training in the Carnatic and Hindustani music traditions of India, Swaminathan creates in New York’s vibrant creative music and improvisatory scene, in hybrid classical compositional work, and in their own multidisciplinary projects. They are a disciple of violin maestro Parur Sri M. S. Gopalakrishnan, Mysore Sri H.K. Narasimhamurthy and Hindustani vocalist Samarth Nagarkar. Since 2018, Swaminathan has been under the compositional mentorship of Gabriela Lena Frank with whom they are exploring the creative possibilities of Western Classical notation as a mode of communication for Indian classical compositional and improvisational ideas. As an educator, Swaminathan has a strong commitment to mindfulness-based music-making, socially conscious and empathetic principles, and expression-oriented rigorous practice.
Moderator
Kavita Shah
Kavita Shah is an award-winning vocalist, composer, researcher, polyglot, and lifelong New Yorker hailed by NPR for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages”. Her projects blending modern jazz, new music, and folkloric traditions include “Visions” (2014), “Folk Songs of Naboréa” (2017), “Interplay” (2018, nominated for France’s Victoires de la Musique), and “Cape Verdean Blues” (forthcoming, 2022). She is currently working on an album of original music with her jazz quintet, chronicling the journey to her ancestral villages in rural India. Kavita regularly performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard and a Master’s in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music.