Each month here we visit with a member of the community to find out what music they’ve been digging.
I’ve been listening to Jean-Phillipe Rameau’s opera “Les Indes Gallantes” and watching Bintou Dembele’s newest choreography. She recasts the ballet using street dance styles to interrupt the deeply problematic plot lines steeped in colonialist and racist tropes. The dancers reclaim their space at the end—dramatically marking the first performance of a Black female choreographer and nearly all-Black cast at the Paris Opera. As part of a collaborative online international learning unit for my piano class, my students and I are learning Greek rebetiko and laiko styles adapted for the piano. In preparation, I have been listening to “Minor of the Dawn” by Markos Vamvakaris, legendary Greek bouzouki player. I am doing a new project with Hafez Modirzadeh, an Iranian-American saxophonist who flirts in the free jazz and contemporary music worlds. His newest album, Facets, features jazz pianists Craig Taborn, Tyshawn Sorey, and Kris Davis. It is a gorgeous album.
This article appears in January 2023.
