REDEMPTION SONGS AND SONATAS
Daniel Bernard Roumain
REDEMPTION SONGS AND SONATAS
In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the birth of the Jamaican singer/songwriter and composer, Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley (1945–1981), Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) has created Redemption Songs & Sonatas, rooted in a worldview of civil rights for all.
Conceived and composed by DBR for violin and piano, this intimate duet program features some of his hallmark and most moving works infused with the spirit of liberation and freedom. From Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” to the Haitian national anthem, Redemption Songs & Sonatas is a composer’s view of our desire to define ourselves, our world, and sometimes, one another.
Redemption Songs and Sonatas has been presented at Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia), The National Gallery (Washington, DC), Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) among others.
The show, 60-75 minutes in length, is adaptable to various venue types, and can be done acoustically with piano and violin, or electroacoustically with keyboard and electric violins.
ABOUT DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN (DBR)
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who sees composing as collaboration with artists, organizations and communities within the farming and framing of ideas. He is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator, and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (New York Times), Roumain has worked with artists from J’Nai Bridges, Lady Gaga and Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones, Marin Alsop and Anna Deavere Smith.
Known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic and African-American music influences, Roumain takes his genre-bending music beyond the proscenium. He is a composer of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, and has composed an array of film, theater, and dance scores. He has composed music for the acclaimed film Ailey (Sundance official selection); was the first Music Director and Principal Composer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; released and appeared on 30 album recordings; and has published over 300 works. He has appeared on CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC, NPR, and PBS; and has collaborated with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Sydney Opera House. He was Artist-in-Residence and Creative Chair at the Flynn in Burlington, Vermont. Currently, he is the first Artistic Ambassador with Firstworks; the first Artist Activist-in-Residence at Longy School of Music; and the first Resident Artistic Catalyst with the New Jersey Symphony.
Roumain is an Atlantic Center Master Artist, a Creative Capital Grantee, and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. He has won the American Academy in Rome Goddard Lieberson Fellowship; a Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship Award; an Emmy Award for The New Look of Classical Music; National Sawdust Disruptor Award; and the Sphinx Organization Arthur L. Johnson Award. He has been featured as a keynote speaker at universities, colleges, conservatories and technology conferences, and was the first ASU GAMMAGE Residency Artist. He has lectured at Yale and Princeton University and was a Roth Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College. He currently serves as a board member for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (Vice Chair), the League of American Orchestras, and is a voting member for the Recording Academy GRAMMY awards.
A student of William Albright, Leslie Bassett, and William Bolcom, Roumain graduated from Vanderbilt University and earned his doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan. He is currently a tenured Associate and Institute Professor at Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
