JEN SHYU AND SARA SERPA LAUNCH M³—MUTUAL MENTORSHIP FOR MUSICIANS— A NEW INITIATIVE DEDICATED TO FOSTERING CREATIVE PARTNERSHIPS AMONG WOMXN MUSICIANS AROUND THE WORLD

Initiative comprises four sessions a year in which 10–12 musicians regularly convene to share their experiences, while also each pairing with a fellow participant to develop a newly commissioned duo work to be premiered in season-finale virtual showcase.

Co-founded in spring 2020 by vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu and vocalist-composer Sara Serpa, M³—Mutual Mentorship for Musicians—was conceived as an initiative that empowers and elevates womxn musicians around the world (including BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ across generations) in a new model of mentorship comprising four sessions per year with each session culminating in a performance of new collaborative commissions. With the aim of building new paradigms of mentorship, M³ encourages the reciprocal, intergenerational exchange of knowledge and experience; formation of new collaborations with musicians outside of one’s inner circle; and cultivation of new ideas and formats for solo and collaborative performance, whether live or virtual.

For more info visit:

www.mutualmentorshipformusicians.org

By Peter Margasak – read more here.

It took moving to the US for singer Sara Serpa to fully grapple with the colonialist legacy of her native Portugal — a topic rarely discussed back at home — even though her family was directly involved in its waning days. Her parents were born in Angola, where they saw the mistreatment of the native population, an injustice they protested after moving to Lisbon.

Her stunning multi-media project Recognition confronts that dark heritage. Working with director Bruno Soares, she created a silent video from her grandfather’s home movies of Angola and Lisbon, interleaved with quotations from African anti-colonialist Amílcar Cabral, and the dazzling chamber jazz heard on this recording serves as its soundtrack.

On most of the pieces she lets the images do the heavy lifting, complementing them with wordless vocals marked by a characteristic precision and purity free of vibrato and empty ornamentation. Her superb collaborators —saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist David Virelles, and harpist Zeena Parkins — interact in shifting combinations, through composed and improvised material.

While the timbre often feels weightless, there’s a ruminative atmosphere to these gauzy vignettes, as charged unison lines and prickly counterpoint float more often than they resolve. Three pieces feature settings of riveting texts by Cabral, scholar Linda Heywood and fiction writer José Luandino that highlight the atrocities and resistance.

Sara Serpa & André Matos perform a live stream concert on Sunday, June 28th, 5pm (EST) / 22h (Lisboa), on the platform Art Is Live.

Developed by Marta Sanchez and Caroline Davis, Art is Live is a platform to show the work of a collective during the quarantine. The first performance premiered on April 17th, 2020 and will continue until venues return to regular programming.Art is Live features the work of different artists 6 times a week. The performances will be varied and showcase what artists are working on, including concerts, improvisations, multimedia projects, and beyond.All the artists involved have lost their work scheduled for the upcoming months, which means they have not only lost money, but also the opportunity to express themselves and communicate with audiences.

If you are in a position where you can contribute, please consider donating to help these artists during this difficult time. Each month, the money will be divided evenly among the artists sharing their creations with you.

Sara Serpa will be teaching an onlineVocal Workshop in partnership with MU74.

Schedule:

July 6- 17th , 3 times/week  (2 hour group session) , 1 private lesson/ week (45 minutes) . 50€/week. Maximum participants 10.

This workshop will focus on vocal exercises, improvisation and composition. 

Practice will work around connecting voice with body,  interpretation fo songs, improvisation, and work on solo, duos, trios settings, using collaborative online tools for recording.

I – warm up, collective singing, introduction to  theories/ approaches about the body and the voice in jazz and improvised music.

II – overview of vocal improvisation contexts and exercises (harmonic structure or free). 

III- each participant will bring one  or more songs, or an original composition to be shared, performed and discussed.

Participants are expected to sign up with an open mind to exercises and suggestions.

Sign up by emailing: simonaparrinello@hotmail.com or hello@mu74label.com

To read more click here.

“Unity and Struggle” from the new album/film Recognition is featured on this week’s Take Five, curated by Nate Chinen.

“Black lives matter. We hold this truth to be self-evident, and yet it needs to be said.

Over the past two weeks, since the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, there has been a reckoning in America and around the world. And as we have seen before, musicians are responding in urgent fashion.

This past Saturday, pianist and Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste spearheaded WE ARE, a march in Manhattan with the exuberant spirit of a New Orleans parade. The songs featured in this week’s Take Five, by and large, strike a heavier tone — but the message and motivation are the same.”

Listen to it here.

” Sara Serpa volta a rodear-se de músicos de topo da cena nova-iorquina para levantar a música de Recognition. E é com a harpista Zeena Parkins, o saxofonista Mark Turner e o pianista David Virelles que partilha estes 11 temas, tão belos e cativantes quanto sobressaltados e perturbadores, impossível que é sacudir um desconforto permanente – de aumento exponencial quando escutado na companhia do filme. (….) Musicalmente, Recognition é de uma extraordinária riqueza (oiça-se Control and Oppression, Occupation ou Free Labor), explora maravilhosamente as sombras entre voz e saxofone ou entre harpa e piano, e termina numa soberba canção, Unity and Struggle (…) Sara Serpa junta, assim, a sua voz aos movimentos de libertação, sabendo que o império pode ter sido derrubado, mas ainda não acabou de cair.”
Gonçalo Frota, Ipsilon. Para ler mais clicar aqui.

“Sara Serpa’s stunning new multimedia work has its roots in film footage taken a decade earlier in Angola by her grandfather. The Portuguese singer grew up in a family, and a country, that preferred not to discuss centuries of colonisation after it came to an end in the 1970s, but his super-8 movies give a vivid impression of life under white minority rule.

This is a powerfully emotional song cycle, spinning off music of almost undeserved beauty from the horrors of a ruthlessly extractive economy that endured for almost 500 years. It deserves to be heard with the film, at least once, but stands up impressively as an audio work in its own right. (…) Serpa, who has recorded memorably with Ran Blake among others, was voted a rising star in last year’s DownBeat critics poll. Consider her risen.”

Jon Turney, London Jazz News. Read more here.

Sara Serpa’s new album Recognition will be released in June 5th 2020 on Biophilia Records.

Biophilia means “an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems.” Our home is Harlem, New York City.

“What sets Biophilia Records apart from other traditional music labels is that in addition to creating meaningful and imaginative music, our artists are united by a common interest in having a positive impact on the environment and our communities. Our artists collaborate with organizations that specialize in conservation, sustainability and outreach initiatives. We regularly volunteer hands-on in community events to help however we can. Our manifesto is:

I will be cognizant of my own resource consumption and environmental impacts. I will make efforts to limit them wherever possible, including:
• Energy: By turning off lights and other appliances when not in use or not necessary.
• Paper: By choosing paperless options when they exist and printing double-sided.
• Materials: By choosing and maintaining reusable alternatives over disposable products, such as water bottles, grocery or shopping bags, dish-ware, and utensils. By avoiding or refusing disposable products (whether plastic or paper) when offered to me by default, except in cases where safety and hygiene are of particular concern.
• Waste: When items cannot be reused and must be disposed, I will sort and separate all materials that are accepted for recycling according to local rules.
• Carbon-intensive activities: by walking, biking, using public transportation, or carpooling, and avoiding air travel when other options are feasible. By eating less meat, and wasting less food.”

For more info www.biophiliarecords.org