Nuts and bolts: Yanie, female, 22, Haitian-American, born and raised in Jersey, Scorpio, just graduated with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Music
I’m a very lucky girl with a postgraduate fellowship to backpack across four continents and study polyphonic vocal traditions for a year. I like challenges.
I grew up in an intuitively musical family and began piano lessons at the age of six. I grew up hearing everything from Bach and A Tribe Called Quest to Haitian kompa and Edith Piaf. I didn’t take singing seriously until college, where I was a member of the concert and chamber choirs, the musical director and arranger for an all-female a cappella group, a voice student, a singer-songwriter, and a soprano for various other ensembles and events. I’m excited to travel and to have this year for myself, driven by a desire to better understand a fascinating phenomenon: the power and purpose of singing together.
Post-script: Now that I’m a few months into the fellowship, my interests have broadened to include questions about sonic production, appropriation, expression, and consumption more generally. After all, one man’s noise is another man’s music. How does sound help us to define individual and collective identities? How have technological advances changed the ways in which we experience sound, noise, and silence? What do the auditory cultures of different cities, social groups, and time periods tell us about constantly evolving ideas concerning culture, history, knowledge, modernity, and aesthetics? In a world that often privileges sight and visual art, I hope to become more aware of the importance of aurality and its role in our lives outside of music-making.
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Great start Yani! Have a fabulous time.
Best to you,
Comment by Lynn Chick August 3, 2010 @ 5:29 pmLynn