The Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) is an independent research unit of Columbia College Chicago devoted to the documentation, research, preservation, and dissemination of information about the history of black music on a global scale. I recently spoke with Melanie Zeck, Research Fellow with the Center, over Skype. Zeck joined the CBMR in 2005, […]
Author Archives: Elisabeth Blair
Posted inInterview
Beauty is a Process
Miami-based composer and saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor’s career has formed an impressive arc—from playing jazz and blues in Mississippi, to being signed with rock band Moses Mayfield to major label Epic Records, to receiving his doctorate in composition. These days he is engaged in composing and performing new music and opera, and is an active […]
Posted inInterview
Some Rawness
Lisa Renèe Coons is a composer, sound artist, and professor at Western Michigan University. Through the course of several emails exchanged in the last few weeks, just after her return from a residency at the MacDowell Colony, we discussed the difficulty of honoring one’s origins, music as a vehicle for dealing with the unspeakable, welding, […]