In Search of Light: Wadada Leo Smith’s Creation of Sound, Symbol, and Breath

FAIN: FEL-273329-21

Nina Sun Eidsheim
UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)

Research and writing leading to a book and companion website about the music and philosophy of American composer Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941).

This project tells the story of composer Wadada Leo Smith’s (b. Mississippi, 1941) contribution to American music, and correctives to both what is considered improvisation and/or jazz and American classical music. Over the past fifty years, Smith has developed an original compositional language he calls Ankhrasmation, which may be described as consisting of multidimensional visual symbols and considered works of art. His compositional language represents an original synthesis of graphic notation-based composition and ritual music in several traditions, European and American art music, and blues, and may usefully be discussed within these contexts—as opposed to a focus on the context of jazz or improvisation to which, as George Lewis has pointed out, the consideration of African American composers is often limited. My methodologies include archival, ethnographic, and practice-based approaches and will build on and contribute to work in Black studies, American music, and sound studies.