vocalist | composer
“The ever-engaging Portuguese vocalist Sara Serpa has a rare gift for bringing musical shape to the written word. She has worked memorably with the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, and on Close Up — her delicate yet direct new album, made with the cellist Erik Friedlander and the saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock — she interprets text by writers including Virginia Woolf. She also sings several wordless pieces, using her voice as a pure instrument. “ Nate Chinen, WBGO Take Five
FUTURE
(text by Virgina Wolf, entry in The Diary of Virgina Woolf: 1915-1919)
“The Future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be I think”.
WOMAN
(text by Luce Irigaray, in Between East and West: From Singularity to Community, 2002)
“Woman like the creator god, engenders with her breath.
But she does it from the inside, without demonstration. She does it invisibly and silently.
Woman teaches, at each moment of the present, and in a continuous manner,
through carrying her child, through speaking to the child.
She shares her life, her breath, she shares but what she shares is not seen”.
PÁSSAROS
(text by Ruy Belo from “Algumas proposições com pássaros e árvores que o poeta remata com
uma referência ao coração”, in Homem de Palavras, 1970)
“Os pássaros nascem na ponta das árvores , As árvores que vejo em vez de frutos dão pássaros (…)
Os pássaros começam onde as árvores acabam. Os pássaros fazem cantar as árvores.”
(english translation)
(The birds are born at the end of the trees. The trees I see, instead of fruits, bear birds.
The birds starts where the trees end. The birds make trees sing.)
Recognition, the interdisciplinary performance combining film and live music, received raving reviews from its presentation at the NYC Winter Jazz Festival 2018.
From The New York Times:
“The vocalist Sara Serpa, best known for her nonverbal excursions, made words a priority on Friday night at the New School. Presenting her suite titled “Recognition,” she read an account of Queen Nzinga, a shrewd Southern African monarch who governed in the early years of colonialism. The harpist Zeena Parkins responded to Ms. Serpa’s spoken inflections with brilliant splatters of notes. Then, as the tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock wove small, asymmetrical patterns around her, Ms. Serpa started to sing, using no words but maintaining the sense of inquiry and rectitude that her reading had established.”
From All About Jazz:
“Vocalist Sara Serpa‘s Recognition followed, proving to be a singular multimedia experience both spellbinding and haunting in nature. Mixing the political and personal, Serpa explored the Portuguese colonization of Angola through a familial lens. Videos from Angola that were connected to her grandfather were woven into a stunning film-turned-backdrop produced by Bruno Soares. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to tag the music that went with it as avant-chamber jazz, but it would do a disservice to the work as a whole to reduce it through any form of labeling. With the blend of Serpa’s chimerical vocals, harpist Zeena Parkins‘ spectral flecks, and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock‘s attractively austere lines working with the film, Recognition was truly beyond category. “
From JazzTrail:
“The displaying of the footage, intercalated with texts by the revolutionary Amilcar Cabral, earned an extra-sensorial meaning with the emplacement of chants that ranged from sparkling to sufferable to propulsive, often creating moments of pure lyricism by themselves or falling in concurrent ostinatos with the other instruments.”
From Feast of Music:
“Down the block at the New School Jazz Building, Portugese vocalist Sara Serpa offered “Recognition”: an extended commentary on colonization and the exploitation of the people in Angola, which only gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. Performing together with harpist Zeena Parkins and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, Serpa’s ethereal vocals brought to mind Meredith Monk while images of trees falling and women working and dancing were projected overhead. It was a reminder that sometimes, the purpose of music is to introduce you to new worlds, new people you’ll never encounter on American TV or in the newspapers.”
RECOGNITION
w/ Zeena Parkins (harp) & Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax)
GET TICKETS HERE
“An overtly political work about the Portuguese colonization of Angola, the program paired Serpa’s compositions with video from old Super-8 home movies of her grandfather made in Angola.”
Downbeat Magazine
Recognition is a unique interdisciplinary performance that melds powerful film imagery with live music. Singer and composer, Sara Serpa, directs and produces a visual narrative using never-seen footage which was recently discovered in her family archives in Portugal and Angola. The segments were shot in the 1960’s in the then colony ruled by Salazar’s notorious fascist regime. The material has been edited and transformed to create a sensory experience in which music and image, highlighted with texts by the revolutionary, Amílcar Cabral, invite the viewer/listener to reflect on history in a visceral way.
__________________________
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13th, 6.20pm
SUBCULTURE
45 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10012
PTYERODACTYL TRIO
w/ Nicole Mittchell (flute) & Liberty Ellman (guitar)
GET TICKETS HERE
A collective trio with the incredible creative musician, composer and professor Nicole Mitchell— the artist-in-residence of the festival and whose album Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds was voted Best of 2017 by The New York Times– and the great guitarist and improviser Liberty Ellman.
Sara Serpa has joined with a collective of musicians to create the movement #wehavevoice, addressing sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the music and performing arts world. Together, they have published an open letter promoting zero tolerance towards sexual harassment, and a website with many resources about this issue. Please visit www.wehavevoice.org, to read and sign the letter. The movement was selected as “Acontecimento do Ano” (Event of the Year) by the Portuguese jazz magazine jazz.pt, on their Best of 2017 list.
“We are a collective of musicians of different generations, races, ethnicities, cultures, abilities, gender identities, economic backgrounds, religious beliefs and affiliations.
Our conversations began over the phone and through text messages, due to our anger, distress and sadness over sexual harassment and gender discrimination within our arts community and the world. We gradually moved to emails, and eventually decided to write this letter and create this website, with the intent to continue to bring awareness of this issue to a larger number of people.
The open letter has been conceived, written, and edited by all of us, as well as members of our extended community. We have come together as a collective and are in solidarity with the larger movement to support an equitable world. We have voice.”
We Have Voice Collective: Ganavya Doraiswamy, Tia Fuller, María Grand, Okkyung Lee, Linda May Han Oh, Nicole Mitchell, Kavita Shah, Tamar Sella, Sara Serpa, Jen Shyu, Rajna Swaminathan, Imani Uzuri, Fay Victor
Sara Serpa, Sofia Rei and Aubrey Johnson in the West Village, 6/2/17
“Three of the most distinctive, individualistic voices in all of music – the intense, noir-inspired Serpa, the irrepressibly fun Rei and the enigmatically lustrous Johnson – shared a characteristically eclectic bill of a-cappella songs and improvisations in a storefront church space. Unexpected venue, magical show.”
After the first performance of Recognition in September at The Drawing Center, with Zeena Parkins and Mark Turner, Sara Serpa sat with Kurt Gottschalk for a conversation about it. It is now published on Downbeat Magazine website. Click here to read it.
Save the date: January 12th.
RECOGNITION
will be performed at the Winter Jazz Fest 2018,
featuring Zeena Parkins (harp) and Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax).
An unique interdisciplinary performance that includes film and live music, in which singer and composer Sara Serpa directs and produce a visual narrative using never seen footage, recently found in her family archives, of Portugal and ex-colony Angola, in the 1960’s, by then a fascist and colonizer regime. This footage has been edited and transformed into a sensorial experience, in which music and image highlighted with texts by revolutionary Amílcar Cabral, invite the viewer/ listener to reflect on history in a non-literal way. With an extraordinary ensemble featuring Zeena Parkins on harp and Mark Turner on saxophone, the music flows into written and improvised material.
Cantora originalíssima, a portuguesa Sara Serpa tem conquistado a atenção internacional. Desde que se estreou com o disco “Praia” (2008, com a participação de Greg Osby), Serpa vem alimentando um percurso sólido e versátil, no qual se destacam as parcerias com o veterano pianista Ran Blake e com o guitarrista André Matos (“All the Dreams” é o disco mais recente da dupla). Residente em Nova Iorque, a cantora está agora a trabalhar num trio inédito, com Ingrid Laubrock (saxofone tenor) e Erik Friedlander (violoncelo) – há promessa de disco para breve. Em Setembro, a convite de John Zorn, apresentará um outro trio, também atípico e promissor: Recognition, com Zeena Parkins e Mark Turner. Aproveitando a sua passagem por Lisboa, e antecipando três noites no histórico Hot Clube (27, 28 e 29 de Julho), a jazz.pt esteve à conversa com Sara Serpa, olhando o passado, o presente e o futuro.
Leia a mais recente entrevista de Sara Serpa na Jazz.pt aqui.
Sara Serpa has contributed with an article about Libero Canto for the 20th anniversary edition of the book Arcana. Initiated in 1997 and now in its eighth installment, John Zorn’s acclaimed Arcana series is a major source of new music theory and practice in the 21st century.
This special anniversary edition presents writings spanning classical music, jazz, rock, improvisation, world music, film soundtracks and more by exciting young artists, established masters and visionary mavericks, including Jad Atoui, Steve Beresford, Per Bloland, Brian Chase, Kris Davis, Robert Dick, Rinde Eckert, Wendy Eisenberg, Harris Eisenstadt, Suzanne Farrin, Dave Fiuczynski, David Garland, Michael Gordon, Simon Hanes, Barbara Hannigan, John Hollenbeck, Matt Hollenberg, Jon Irabagon, Julian Lage, Ava Mendoza, Matt Mitchell, Nicole Mitchell, Vadim Neselovskyi, Linda May Han Oh, Shane Parish, Chris Pitsiokos, Sofia Rei, Ted Reichman, Sara Serpa, Marc Urselli, Ken Vandermark and Dan Weiss.
Available for purchase on Tzadik website and on Amazon.