SIMONE
SIMONE
A new evening-length solo work by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)
“Every time we meet, it’s the first time...”
In SIMONE, composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain explores memory through his relationship with his mother, Simone Bernadette Olivier Roumain. She lives with dementia and can no longer remember he is her son. He carries a lifetime of memories of her, and questions about the parts of her life he may never know.
Through an arresting live violin soundscape woven with Simone’s own voice, DBR assembles a musical portrait of his mother that leaves room for what remains unsaid. What has she shared, what has she kept to herself, and what is still possible to discover together? Her recorded laughter reverberates through the space as he equally celebrates and mourns the life of his matriarch, underscored by her native Haitian rhythms.
Intimate and searching, SIMONE considers the fragility of memory, the pain of no longer being recognized, the celebration of a life lived, and the continued presence of a woman whose experience exceeds what anyone can remember. It gives an evening to a relationship that begins again with every visit.
ABOUT DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN
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.
