Illumination Space

The Illumination Space is a place to celebrate, share, and discuss music and musicians that have been left out of the mainstream conversation. Historically, this has happened for many reasons: artists have been underappreciated, forgotten, or denied opportunities due to race, gender, even genre, and these continue to be issues faced by artists today.

Contemporary Improvisation co-chair Eden MacAdam-Somer says, "My hope is that this space will continue to grow, featuring new projects over time, whether created by students, faculty, alumni, or guests. If you'd like to share a project at any time, please get in touch. Meanwhile, enjoy!"

During this course from Spring 2021, students created and contributed new projects that shone a light on more incredible female musicians.

Saxophonist Joseph Borsellino composed and recorded the piece below, "Medase," as part of Felicia Sandler's Music in Ghana class, using Uhuru Dance Band's "Eyaa Duom" as a model.

Read more about the Music in Ghana class and projects

In the 2020–2021 school year, the Music in Ghana course I teach was offered remotely due to Covid. This meant that the end-of-the-semester collaboration our students routinely enjoy with master drummer Emmanual Attah Poku and his dance and drum ensemble at Tufts couldn’t happen. In place of this performance, students engaged in a model composition process.  

Every year, students are amazed at how central language is to music in Ghana. It is the basis of vocal works of course, but also of drumming and instrumental works. “Talking drum” is not a metaphor. The contours of the tonal language are routinely reflected in the contours of melody. Throughout the semester, intermingled with analyses, performances, lectures, and discussions related to a variety of Ghanaian repertoires — traditional, art music and popular — each student transcribed a given Twi text that would serve as the basis for a final composition project modeled on the rep of their choice. They then recorded their performances, one of which you can hear below.  

The point was not to use the model as a launching pad for their own creativity as much as a means for understanding the creativity of those we studied all term. The greatest complement would be for their work to be recognized by an informed listener as being resonant with the artists emulated. Model composition of this type is recognized as a particularly potent way to learn music, and as such is a central part of theory curricula across this country. For this reason, the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Schoenberg, Webern, Cage, and so on has come to be known by college-educated musicians in this country, deeply. This is why the present projects feel so important to me; they give budding artists the chance to come to know the music of Ghanaian artists as deeply as the music of Western European artists. It was inspiring to see these projects come to fruition, and we are very happy to share one of them with you.

—Felicia Sandler

In Fall 2020, students in Eden Macadam-Somer's Women in Music class opened the Illumination Space with projects they put together in the class. Throughout the semester, interspersed with lectures and discussions on artists from many genres, cultures, and traditions, each student developed a pre-recorded project centered around an artist of color, preferably someone they had never really studied before. Students were encouraged to choose the mode of presentation that suited them best, and the results included podcasts, videos, narrated slide-shows, sketches, collages, and live performances. Watch and listen to some of these projects below.

Read more about the Women in Music class and projects

As these projects were being put together, we dedicated a fair amount of time to peer review sessions, in which students shared their work in breakout rooms on zoom, both giving and receiving feedback. 

As performing artists and educators, I think that we all strive to build connections between the various aspects of our lives, whether in school, on the stage, in our practice, in our travels, in the global and local struggles and successes that surround us. That is why projects like this feel so important to me, and so empowering. It was both exciting and inspiring to see these projects come to fruition, and I’m very happy to share them with you. 

I’d like to give a heartfelt thanks to everyone in my class for all that they contributed to an especially meaningful Fall 2020 semester, and for shaping and kicking off this project. Additionally, sincere thanks to everyone else at NEC who has helped shape the concept and get it up online!

—Eden MacAdam-Somer