Classically Modern
Sergio Mims Interviews Classical Pianist Jade Simmons
2009-12-31
by Sergio Mims

Among the new generation of classical music artists, few are making the huge impact and receiving the kind of acclaim that pianist Jade Simmons has been of late. The Charleston, South Carolina native/ Northwestern University Graduate/Rice University Shephard School of Music graduate/former Miss Illinois and First Runner Up at the 2000 Miss America Pageant has been gaining well-deserved notices and standing ovations from audiences for her extraordinary talent and her eclectic mix of music genres all of which are on full display in her new Koch International CD release “Revolutionary Rhythms.”

The album is a reflection of her varied influences from classical modern composers such as Samuel Barber and John Corigliano to pieces such as "Hip-Hop Etudes" by composer DBR.

Recently Ebonyjet.com had an opportunity to talk to Ms Simmons (who was also featured in 2007 as one of Ebony Magazine’s "Young Leaders Under 30")  when she was recently Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago for a concert performance and a series of lectures.

EBONY: Let’s begin with a question involving me if you don’t mind. My editor was trying to get me to write this piece about being a classical music lover in the age of hip-hop, but I refused because it sounded to me, probably wrongly I’m sure, like saying: “Write something about how it feels to be a freak.” So how would you answer that question?
SIMMONS: I’ve never felt like a freak. It was never this big delineation between, say classical and hip hop. It was just another form that I love. Hip-hop I dance to. Classical, some of it I do dance to (laughs). Even a piece like Rachmaninov’s "Rhapsody on a Theme" by Paganini, some parts when I play it I have to back off a bit because I’m grooving way too long on it (laughs).

EBONY: Well, I remember when I was a kid you could find classical music albums everywhere. Even those old A&P supermarkets in my neighborhood would regularly sell them cheap. Not anymore.
SIMMONS: Well what you had was more ideal than what younger people have now because there was that access. Though it may have started as this sort of elite thing that was set up for a certain part of society, it can’t get more accessible than being in a grocery store, you see what I’m saying? Now you go to Wal-Mart or Target and you can’t even find classical music. There’s no classical music section.

It’s a weird problem that classical music has set up for itself. It tried hard to set itself apart from other types of music and it’s been so successful that now everybody else doesn’t care that it’s not in Target, or Dominick’s or Jewel. I think we have to get back to a point where we put it right next to all this other great music and there’s not this big delineation or differentiation, so you give people the access to hear it and go: “I like that!”

EBONY: So for you there really isn’t any difference between, say, classical and hip-hop?
SIMMONS: My husband hears me say it all the time that when I’m playing something and I hear the bass, I hear the beat and I say to myself that this is no different than what Kanye is doing like in his 808s and Heartbreak album. You can hear that same kind of love of rhythm, of texture. I think that’s the point. Just opening people up to good music, period.

EBONY: Sort of like that old saying that music is the universal common language.
SIMMONS: For me classical in the age of hip hop is just something else that I do on my CD and my concerts where I’m combining the (modern 20th century American composer) Samuel Barber piano sonata and on the second half a dude will come out and do live, electronic hip hop beats to a piece written by DBR (composer Daniel Bernard Roumain). And I think that the thing that’s important is not to water down what already exists. I not going to put hip-hop beats to the Barber piano sonata. But why not on that same program have pieces that have amazing rhythm? To show how amazing and how ahead of his time Barber was using rhythm. Why not be able to say that what Missy Elliott and Timberland are doing is amazing? The fact that they are coming out with these new types of rhythm. I feel like it’s all the same. You can talk about it in the same language.

EBONY: Well like I tell people if you like hip hop then listen to (late 19th century - early 20th century American composer) Charles Ives, especially his 4th Symphony or his Holidays Symphony or his orchestral work "Three Places in New England." It’s all about all these rhythms going on in different tempos and keys within the same work.
SIMMONS: Oh wow! Well you see the key is that thread. We have to be so careful about saying that one music genre is better than another. Like I say there is good stuff in all genres and there is bad stuff in all genres.

EBONY: So what composers are currently your favorites? For me there are some composers that I “got” immediately the first time I heard them like say Ives or Haydn or others I had to listen and work at getting like Edward Elgar, Anton Bruckner or the atonal Second Viennese School music of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg...
SIMMONS: You’re going to find this funny, but it’s still taking me a long time to get into Mozart.

EBONY: Mozart is extremely complex. Much more than people think.
SIMMONS: The fact I connected to it as young child, but as I get older I never felt “at home.” But old school, I love Bach. I could dedicate a year to nothing but Bach and be completely happy. But new music-wise I’m into a lot of Tania Leon, playing her stuff. To me it’s the most amazing thing in the world. She is this female, Afro Cuban composer and conductor and she has this wonderful fusion of her Latin roots and throws in some blues and some jazz under the umbrella of 20th century atonality and for me when I heard it I felt for me as if I had come home.

EBONY: You hit on something because classical music is just like any kind of music that gets you on an emotional level.
SIMMONS: I think that one thing classical forgets very often is that it started to look at the word "entertainment" as a dirty word. I think that there's something to be said about people who come to a concert hall on the assumption that they’re not going to enjoy themselves and that they’re going to struggle to stay awake. And I think that’s a disservice to the music. And that assumption, like all stereotypes, have to come from somewhere.

EBONY: Well I have experiences where I've taken friends to some concert or opera expecting that they are going to be lost or mystified or bored, but they always love what they hear.
SIMMONS: You know back when I was in grad school and playing pieces I was assigned to play, and it wasn’t always necessarily my cup of tea, but I would think: “O.K. let me try to get across what I think the composer was wanting here.”  It was amazing how the audience would connect with it. Or like my husband’s friends who he brought to be CD release party and they didn’t know what to expect.

They kind of came, and they said later: “Hey, you know we like this!” That’s the key. And these guys are like “baggy jeans, hip hop only” and they were like: “That thing you played, the Barber fugue, that was wild! I could see you grooving with it!”

EBONY: Well that brings up an interesting thing. You think that younger audiences are more accepting of different music than older black folk who have narrower, stuck in the mud, “I-just-like-what-I-like- and-don’t-want-to-hear-anything-different” attitude?
SIMMONS: I think younger audiences are the hardest audience too, because if they don’t get it they’re going to tell you that didn’t make any sense, that it was a whole bunch of noise. But because we’re in the age of tolerance and open mindedness and anything goes, they’ll come and check it out.

EBONY: But you’re not a fan of what they call “crossover” music? That lame stuff they like to make for people too timid and gutless to listen to the real thing of whatever music genre it is?
SIMMONS: I am not a big fan and what they call ‘crossover”. So when my CD came out I made it clear that I’m not crossing over into anything. Every composer on my CD is a legitimate classical composer. The only thing we added were hip-hop beats to the pieces that were already called "Hip Hop Etudes." When I found the piece I called up the composer DBR. I said:”Look it sounds empty. It’s just the piano part. How do you perform it?” And he said: ”Well when I play it I have my ten piece band on stage and a guy on a turntable and a guy on drum set”. So I asked his permission to come up with electronic beats because you can’t play a piece called "Hip Hop Etudes" and it doesn’t sound like hip-hop. But it is still within a storyline. How do you tell the story of what a musical revolution was? And I think that speaks to people, the idea of a revolution. We are living in one right now, the Obama age. I mean there are themes that we in classical music can use to draw in a new crowd. The key is drawing in, not tricking, not even seducing. Not by packaging it as a gimmick. Anyone can see through it.

EBONY: Reminds me of what classical soprano Cecilia Bartoli once said about “crossover” music. She said: ”I don’t do crossover music. You crossover to me”.
SIMMONS: Really? Good stuff! And that's how I think crossover should be used. I think that the way we program concerts and albums can be more innovative. Whether that means including hip-hop, country and western, jazz,  whatever it doesn’t matter. There’s more room for innovation. And I think it’s fine that people find themselves crossing over. Look at this new generation, the IPod generation. Look at my IPod. I’ve got "Fever" by Peggy Lee, some old school stuff like Digable Planets, some horror movie soundtracks and I’ve got Bach’s preludes and fugues, different concertos and a mix tape of KRS-1  and other stuff and I think that’s exciting. And my stuff is tame compared to some other people’s IPods I’ve seen. That means that’s a generation that’s willing to take a listen.

To find out more about Jade Simmons and her new CD and downloads go to her website:

www.jademedia.org