Composition Seminar: Matana Roberts, saxophone

This week, the Composition Seminar has the privilege of hosting internationally renowned composer, band leader, saxophonist, sound experimentalist, and mixed-media practitioner Matana Roberts, who will be joining us via Zoom for a presentation entitled "Strategies for creativity (in the midst of crisis)."Roberts works in many contexts and mediums, including improvisation, dance, poetry, and theater. She made two records as a core member of the Sticks And Stones trio in the early 2000s and has gone on to release a diverse body of solo and ensemble work under her own name over the past decade. She is perhaps best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, a multi-chapter work of “panoramic sound quilting” that aims to expose the mystical roots and channel the intuitive spirit-raising traditions of American creative expression while maintaining a deep and substantive engagement with narrativity, history, community, and political expression within improvisatory musical structures. The Constellation label began documenting Coin Coin in 2011 and has released the first four of twelve album-length chapters. Memphis, the fourth chapter, was released last October.

Photo: M. Tarantelli