Anaïs Maviel is a 2019 Van Lier Fellow
I dreamed a piece involving synthesizers and custom-made percussion instruments, played by an ensemble of vocalists/multi-instrumentalists—mediators between ancient, future and the multiple relations of sound to self, space and time. This is the premise for developing songs as cells of an organism, parting and fusing fragments of an ever-changing story of one and many characters, reflecting micro and macro-cosmos of a transitory moment, aka this time around.
In the second performance of her year-long Van Lier Fellowship, composer and vocalist Anaïs Maviel presents Time is Due—a musical drama designed for a multitude of textures performed by a large electro-acoustic ensemble. Accompanied by five other multi-instrumentalists, this piece is an extension of the artist’s solo work where she invites each collaborator and their universe of sounds as a unique composer and improvisor to sing and rotate around various percussion and harmonic instruments. With six voices and twelve hands, Maviel can explore more complex polyrhythm and counterpoint and multi-directional meditations on relational matters.
Drifting towards trance, Time is Due addresses common yet complex human questions present in collective singing traditions since the dawn of humanity: what is our coexistence made of? How is coexistence transformative? How is culture relaying our ability to reach one another? Is there a line we can call separation between each other and how? Is love enough of an instinct to teach us coexistence?
Using music as a matrix to hint at the multiplicity and ubiquity of one tone, one word, one moment in time, and one self, mutable characters represent evolving archetypes, and relay each other on questioning the existence of love as an ideal relationship conduit—which requires clearing. Exploring the entrancing percussive power of keyboard language in relation to futuristic possibilities of sound synthesis, as well as concentric cycles of breath and heart beat already present in nature-based music making, the piece aims to bring insight into our existence at large as inherently interdependent. Song will be a common ground to develop this multi-layered conversation, in its quality to carry both personal and impersonal discourse in between narration and contemplation.
Anaïs Maviel—vox, keys, percussion, composition
Chiquita Magic—vox, keys, percussion
Rema Hasumi—vox, keys, percussion
Shahzad Ismaily—vox, keys, percussion
Alexis Marcelo—vox, keys, percussion
Melvis Santa—vox, keys, percussion
Lilleth Glimcher—director
With custom made instruments by Jonatan Malm
Anaïs Maviel is a vocalist, percussionist, composer, music director, and community facilitator. Her work focuses on the function of music as essential to settling common grounds, addressing Relation, and creating a utopian future. Inspired by Edouard Glissant’s reflections on Creolization, she has associated her practice with the inextricable currents that move spaces and people between times and lands. The contemporary context of re-formulation of self, reality and social structures led her to question the use of language, and to explore its vibratory essence in music. Involved at the crossroads of mediums – music, visual art, dance, theater and performance art – she has been an in-demand creative force for artists such as William Parker, Steffani Jemison, Daria Faïn, Larkin Grimm, Shelley Hirsch, Mara Rosenbloom, Melanie Maar & La Bomba de Tiempo – to give a sense of her eclectic company. As a leader she is dedicated to substantial creations from solo to large ensembles, music direction for cross-disciplinary works, and to expanding the power of music as a healing & transformative act. She performs extensively in New York, as well as in North, Central & South America and Europe. Her solo debut hOULe, out on Gold Bolus Recordings, received international acclaim and she recently released an eponymous album with carnivalesque duo DIASPORA. With a Masters Degree in Aesthetics (Literature, Arts & Contemporary Though – Paris VII Diderot University), she focused her scholarly works on Afrocentric paradigms of Creative Music as utopian alternative politics. Anaïs Maviel pursues essay and poetic writings as part of her artistic inquiry and published a recent article in French magazine Revue et Corrigée, interviewed by bassist and collaborator Maxim Petit about the stakes of multiculturalism in contemporary music. Recent achievements also include: Co-Music Director for NOISE, a new musical by César Alvarez (Public Theater, NYC, 2018) Full length work Metadire premiered by Cross Times (Roulette, NYC, 2018) DIáSPORA eponymous album release on São Paulo based label Hérnia de Discos as the culmination of a South, Central & North America tour in partnership with Chiquita Magic (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, United States, Canada, 2017-2018) Composer, Music Director & Performer for “Mayday Heyday Parfait” in collaboration with the Commons Choir, Daria Faïn, Robert Kocik & Darius Jones (BRIC, NYC, 2017) Lectures & Master Classes at UNILAB – University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (Redenção, BR), MAMAM – Museum of Modern Art Aloísio Magalhães (Recife, BR, 2017) & Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Lima, PER, 2018) Composer, Music Director & Performer for Urban Bush Women’s Summer Leadership Institute “Undoing Racism” final performance, Kumble Theater, NYC, 2016.
Isis Giraldo aka Chiquita Magic is a composer and producer based in Montreal and Toronto. She makes futuristic lo-fi music and sometimes writes for large ensembles and choirs. She has released four full length albums (Isis Giraldo Poetry Project – DIW Japan, Chiquita Magic, Aventuras, Diáspora w/ Anaïs Maviel – Hernia de Discos, Brazil) as well as a variety of EPs and singles. She has played and toured extensively in North and South America both independently and with some of her favorite musicians including Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi, Thom Gill, Brahja Waldman, Emma Frank, and Anaïs Maviel.
Rema Hasumi is an experimental pianist, vocalist, producer and writer who is based out of Brooklyn, NY. Hasumi was born in 1983 in Fukuoka, Japan, and moved to the United States in 2002 to pursue her passion for music, which was nurtured through more than ten years of classical piano study and the listening experiences of her audiophile parent’s record collection. Hasumi has performed at venues across NY, the United States and Asia. In 2009 she performed at the Kennedy Center as one of the four finalists of Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Pianist Competition. In 2014, upon invitation by acclaimed vocalist Jen Shyu, Hasumi presented her solo work “The Patterns of Duplicity” at a series of “Solo Rites” concerts by Ms. Shyu. The piece featured the poetry “Spring and Asura” (1925) by Kenji Miyazawa interpreted in multiple languages, exploring the possibilities of musical ideas unique and inherent to each language. Hasumi has also worked extensively as both pianist and vocalist in many other projects, including a series of collaborations with the saxophonist Darius Jones in which they performed the music of Alice Coltrane. She has also worked as the vocalist in the guitarist Todd Neufeld’s new two-drummer group. Hasumi’s new trio premiered in June 2015 in two nights of concerts in NYC. It featured compositions she wrote for piano and voice, performed alongside the great Randy Peterson and Masa Kamaguchi. Her first record “UTAZATA” was released in May 2015 from Ruweh Records, which she runs as a co-founder. It features the highly sympathetic cast of Todd Neufeld (guitar), Thomas Morgan (bass), Billy Mintz (drums), and fiery guest musicians Ben Gerstein (trombone) and Sergio Krakowski (pandeiro). The group interprets the themes of Japanese Gagaku and ritual music. This record was made as a result of mindful searching on femininity, mythology and rituals in Japanese performing arts. In 2016, Hasumi released a trio recording “Billows of Blue” featuring Randy Peterson and Masa Kamaguchi. Her most recent album and a solo recording, called “Abiding Dawn”, reveals Hasumi’s sound world all alone, layering and unlayering voice, piano and analog synthesizers in a seamless journey of eight gorgeous tracks. The word and the wordless, the pitched and the unpitched all meet in Hasumi’s voice, while her piano honors the influences of Alice Coltrane and Masabumi Kikuchi, met squarely on her own honest terms. The use of synthesizer, a vintage Korg Delta DL-50, serves to encompass and meld the sonic meal.
Shahzad Ismaily was born to Pakistani immigrant parents and grew up in a wholly bicultural household. While he holds a masters degree in biochemistry from Arizona State University, he is a largely self-taught composer and musician, having mastered the electric and double bass, guitar, banjo, accordion, flute, drums, various percussion instruments and various analog synthesizers and drum machines. Ismaily has recorded or performed with an incredibly diverse assemblage of musicians, including Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Jolie Holland, Laura Veirs, Bonnie Prince Billy, Faun Fables, Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Elysian Fields, Shelley Hirsch, Niobe, Will Oldham, Nels Cline, Mike Doughty (of Soul Coughing), Graham Haynes, David Krakauer, Billy Martin (of Medeski Martin and Wood), Carla Kihlstedt’s Two Foot Yard, the Tin Hat Trio, Raz Mesinai and Burnt Sugar. He has also composed regularly for dance and theater, including for Min Tanaka, the Frankfurt Ballet and the East River Commedia. Recently he composed the score for the critically acclaimed movie Frozen River, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. He was also an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA in 2008. Currently based in New York , Ismaily has studied music extensively in Pakistan, India, Turkey, Mexico, Santiago, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco and Iceland.
Alexis Marcelo is a pianist born and bred in New York City with a unique, soulful sound. Alexis Marcelo studied with world-renowned artist Yusef Lateef at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has performed at various festivals and prestigious venues that include North Sea Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, and Alice Tully Hall. Alexis has been featured on recordings with Yusef Lateef and can be heard on recordings with Adam Rudolph, Mike Pride, and Malcolm Mooney He is actively performing with his hip-hop duo group Lexiglass , Adam Rudolph, JD Parran and Rosemary George. Alexis is a proud recipient of 2 grants from the Bronx Council on the Arts and is currently working on a new solo recording “Abstractions of Monk”.
Melvis Santa is a Grammy Nominated singer, arranger, composer, bandleader, actress, and arts educator. Born and raised in Habana, Cuba, Melvis came to multidisciplinary performance through her early years involvement with various cultural traditions. At age 7 she began studying classical piano. At 14, made a splash in the Cuban jazz scene by founding the all-female collective vocal group Sexto Sentido, deemed by Chucho Valdés “the best Cuban vocal quartet of the past 30 years.” Later she joined Roberto Carcassés`s seminal fusion band Interactivo, touring worldwide and collaborating with the who`s who on the music scene. In 2012, Santa spread her wings and recorded her Cubdisco nominated album Santa Habana as a solo artist and composer. Her musical influences evoke greats like Merceditas Valdés, Rita Montaner, Moraima Secada, and Marta Valdés. Also, jazz legends such as Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln, and Shirley Horn. The New York Times defines her style as possessing 70`s soul underpinnings, yet belonging to the Afro Cuban musical traditions. Currently based in New York, Melvis continues to make a mark as a performer and educator. She has conducted master classes and music/dance workshops at NYU, CUNY GC, Tulane University (New Orleans), Boulder CU, and other institutions across the US. She also has showcased her 2 main projects: Ellas Son (all-female Latin music quintet), and Ashedi (Afro Cuban Jazz and Rumba) at Bridland, Minton`s Playhouse, Zinc Bar, The Jazz Gallery, The Bronx Museum, Lincoln Center Outdoors Festival. Her composition style blends Afro Cuban music with jazz elements. Collaborations include Ravi Coltrane, Steve Coleman, David Virelles, Roman Diaz, Pedrito Martinez, Gilles Peterson & Havana Cultura, Bill O`Connell, Emeline Michell, Women Raga Massive, Emilio Santiago, Buena Vista Social Club, Muñequitos de Matanzas, Jane Bunnett and Maqueque.
Lilleth Glimcher directs immersive experiences, operas, and movement theatre. They also create performance, sculptures, film, paintings, and music. Glimcher is the founder and artistic director of YOU ARE HERE (@yah.world), aiming to create equitable access to healing and creative expression, specifically for BIPOC and queer/trans/non-binary folks through happenings, research, and producorial support. Glimcher’s work and direction has been shown at The New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Abrons Art Center, The American Academy in Rome, P-E-O-P-L-E 2018, DAAD Galerie Berlin, National Sawdust, The Capri Marfa, Pace Gallery, Dixon Place, Ars Nova, the Westbeth Artist Building, The Flea Theater, Alpha Space, The Future of Storytelling, and myriad site specific locations. Glimcher has also associate and assistant directed for Ivo Van Hove, César Alvarez, 600 Highwaymen, Lila Neugebauer, Niegel Smith, Robert Whitman, André Gregory, Lily Whitsitt, Shira Milikowksy, Teddy Bergman, and other artists across disciplines. Glimcher graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Psychology and secondary in Dramatic Arts. Glimcher is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Thank you to the Lenape people for this land. Learn more about ways to honor native land at the USDAC and learn more about the land you’re standing on.
Anaïs Maviel is a 2019 Roulette Van Lier Fellow. This performance is made possible by the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust.
