(soft music) - [Male] Hey, (indistinct), how you doing?

- [Male] I'm better than all right.

I'm better than all right.

(laughs) (upbeat, jazz music) - [Male] (indistinct) song three, take one.

(soft music) - Hello, I'm Damien Sneed, I'm a pianist, vocalist, organist, composer, conductor, arranger, producer and arts educator.

But today it's my honor to have the title of host of this special series, "Music for Social Justice".

In this limited run series we'll hear some moving performances from excellent musicians.

Most importantly, we're going to hear from the musicians themselves as they put into words what social justice means to them and how the power of music transcends all.

Violinist and violist Yvonne Lam is a thoughtful musician and an avid chamber musician inspired by artistic collaboration.

For eight years she was a co-artistic director of the groundbreaking chamber ensemble, Eighth Blackbird and she's a passionate educator and advocate for new music.

As you'll hear Yvonne has this incredible ability to pull you into her performances with her technical prowess combined with beautiful story telling.

And the story she tells is both personal and universal.

(soft music) - You know as an American born child of immigrants I've struggled with my identity a lot.

Sometimes I've feel like I had to downplay it in order to fit in or be accepted or to prove a stereotype wrong.

And other times I've really felt like celebrating it.

Like it's something that makes me more of a rich and diverse person.

I decided to share "Memory" by Chen Yi, she is a Chinese composer who has been teaching at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

So the piece is sort of a blend of Chinese instruments and folk melodies.

It evokes those instruments and also just of the Western classical tradition, which illustrates her voice very, very well.

(soft music) The piece speaks to me on many levels, and I think there are moments, you know, there's a moment of anguish, moments of nostalgia, and also a sense of just a fond farewell.

I really admire Chan Yi's ability to sort of bring all the disparate aspects of her life together into a very powerful voice.

And I aspire to that, myself to be able to embrace all the aspects of my background and to not think of them as something that makes me different or other, but as something that again makes me just a fuller, richer person.

(soft music) In this piece, you'll hear the violin doing many glices back and forth, downwards.

And I think that's one of the most salient aspects of a feature that she took from Chinese folk music and instruments, how they're played.

(soft music) And you'll also notice some dissonances, you know, a lot of dissonances that, you know, might come more out of the sort of expressionist period of classical music.

Classical music suffers from the stereotype of being music by dead white men and being elitist, something for only rich people.

And I think especially women, historically we're very much excluded from classical music.

And I think we great strides in that area of including women, especially in the performing realm.

But I think that it's important that we turn our attention to composers and that the actual music that we listen to and perform and program.

I think that the music that we choose to love, the music that we choose to program says a lot about our values.

It reflects our values.

Classical music and the people who are performing classical music and writing classical music look very different from a century ago.

And I think it's very important to celebrate that.

It's very important to reflect that reality and to continually make a new tradition.

It will take time, but I think if we don't program those works, if we aren't brave and looking for new voices then the art form will not evolve.

It will not move forward.

And so that's why I think it's really important to be playing pieces like this.

(soft music) It's really important that everyone does what they can.

Everyone does their part in addressing inequality and oppression.

For me, it makes the most sense to do it in the field that I work in.

Music really touches people on an emotional level, sort of bypasses the thought in your brain.

And in that way, I think it can be really, really impactful.

I think the first step is always self-reflection.

I think there's a lot of things that we take for granted as just the way things are, you know?

And we're not even aware of the thought processes of the things that we think automatically because they're so ingrained.

And so I think taking the time to reflect on yourself first and addressing whatever it is that you find there which may be a little bit uncomfortable.

So I think it can be overwhelming when you think of yourself as just one person and you feel a little powerless to make change happen.

But I think it's really important to understand that one person is not responsible for changing the world.

You know, you're responsible for doing your part, whatever that is, whatever you feel that can be and then to be courageous and take that step, whatever it is.

And I think once you take that first step the next ones are always a little bit easier and people will see your courage.

People will see that you're trying to do something and it will inspire others to do the same.

I think a lot about what it means to be American.

I feel thoroughly American but I don't look thoroughly American.

You know, my parents were immigrants, but I was born here.

And I think about does that make me more American than they are?

'Cause really what is an American?

And we're all immigrants at some point.

Being born here and not having an accent affords me privilege that my parents didn't have.

I've seen it firsthand if I'm with them, and they're trying to express themselves to somebody and that person hears their accent and treats them as less intelligent.

But if I go in and speak to that person without an accent I don't get treated the same way.

That was a painful thing to see as a child.

And it, some, you know, leads a child with those experiences to think maybe this is something I should hide, you know?

Because then I won't get treated the same way my parents got treated.

But you know, I think I've come to a place where I'm almost ashamed that I was ever ashamed of feeling that way, because I mean I know lots of people have the same experience, especially children of immigrants, this identity crisis, where you get pulled in many directions and you don't really, you don't know what to be 'cause you can be both and you have both and it's constant feeling of, oh, am I this, am I that?

And you know, well I think no one ever really telling me you are both and that makes you American.

That makes you, that's okay.

And that's actually wonderful.

(gentle music) (soft music) (soft, upbeat music) - What if you begin to realize that in almost everything you want to do, you were going to be the first to do it?

Our next artist has experienced that feeling many times.

Jordyn Davis is a bassist, composer and singer.

You can't fit her into a neat little box because she is truly a Renaissance woman when it comes to her skills and interests.

She found inspiration in a song by the great Nina Simone.

And she has also found her own voice.

(soft music) - Music for me is my voice.

I feel like since I started creating and finding ways to be a creative person, you know music has always come most naturally to me and I've always just felt like whatever you can't find words to say, you know, you can write a piece of music or you play your instrument and it becomes the equivalent of that.

And in a lot of ways, that's true for me.

And whenever I'm writing a piece of music, the first thing I think about is what am I trying to say?

And why am I trying to say it?

The piece that I performed is an original composition of mine that I actually wrote for this social justice music series.

The piece is entitled "Meditations On Four Women".

And I wrote it as kind of ode to Nina Simone and the message behind her song and composition, "Four Women" which includes four verses of lyrics that depict and tell the stories of the black woman experience from four different black women.

(soft music) How I was introduced to the piece was this past March I was actually accepted into this residency called The Woodshed Network.

And it's a mentoringship program for women in jazz, run by jazz legend, Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Going through her discography, I heard a rendition that she did of "Four Women" by Nina Simone and was immediately like really inspired to write my own arrangement of "Four Women".

But as opposed to doing like an arranged version of Nina's tune or adapting it from Dee Dee's version I just decided to compose something that felt really organic for me to play and for me to share with people and also to really write a piece about, you know representing the black experience, share the experiences of black women and also just represent black women in music.

I think people often take for granted how important representation is and how truly impactful it can be to just see another person who looks like you doing something that you wanna do.

You know in my pretty much entire musical education I've constantly been searching for that as a composer, as a bass player.

And you know, that feeling resonates with me because in every space that I've ever been in like I've always been the other, I've always been the token person or the only person doing this or the only black woman or the only woman in a space.

- Jordyn Davis, College of Music, Composition Advanced Studies.

First African American woman to receive Bachelors of Music in Composition from Michigan State.

(audience cheers) (audience applauds) - It meant a lot to me to feel seen and to feel heard and to feel recognized.

My literal existence is my resistance.

And I understand how important it is for me to be seen and for me to be heard and why that matters for the future of music.

Because for so long people who look like me have been pushed out of the narrative and have been told that their music or their art is of no value or they're not good enough or all of these different things.

And we're still here facing the same issues, facing the same injustices.

And like, even though we've done a lot of great things here, like there's still problems.

If we continue to just accept what the reality is and not question why it is that way, or come up with ideas to make a change, then things stay the same and things don't change.

At the very least, this series has given the members of our community the opportunity to come out of our little corners, discuss our ideas and make music.

Even if we're not making it together, we're all participating in this series and raising awareness for why this matters and why making music matters and why it matters to make music as a community.

And this is gonna take not just me or not just all of the brown and black people in your community, but it takes everybody.

It takes absolute 100% commitment from everybody.

(soft music) (soft, jazz music) (soft, upbeat music) - Thank you for joining us, I'm Damien Sneed, until next time.

(soft music) (upbeat music) I'm Damien Sneed.

It's my honor to have the title of host of this special series, "Music for Social Justice".

We'll hear some moving performances from excellent musicians.

Most importantly, we're going to hear from the musicians themselves, as they put into words what social justice means to them and how the power of music transcends all.

- The words of that song is just so uplifting and inspiring and powerful.

- There's something more elemental about what music brings to the table when it comes to an issue like social justice.

- With this music, we're trying to take injustices that still remain, work through them and help to break the walls down.

- There's only one race and that's the human race.

Once we can get to that, then we got something.

(soft, upbeat music)