Product Description
What Would Nina Simone Say? For Soprano Sax and Organ (9'50")
Program Notes
I became interested in Nina Simone in the spring of 2018. She was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, my own hometown. I knew little about her while I was growing up. Later I heard she was an activist and the sentiment around town I observed was that there was far from a feeling of pride about who Nina Simone was. If that really was the case (and I have no proof of it) there was a dramatic change with the creation of The Nina Simone Project in 2006. I was still ignorant of this, having lived in Arizona for most of my adult life. But researching Simone led me to an immense feeling of pride for my hometown when I read about the support she had from the white community in the 1940s. Without that encouragement and financial support, as well as artistic support from a local piano teacher, Muriel Mazzanovich, "Mrs. Mazzy", as she was called and who Nina treasured and respected all of her life, Nina Simone would never have reached the world with her unique prodigious musical talent. She was a diva by all counts and her original compositions reflect a balance of words with music that is far superior to what her contemporaries were creating. A bronze sculpture of her by Zenos Frudakis now stands on Main Street in Tryon.
"How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?" Simone asked in an interview. "That to me is the definition of an artist." The feminist writer Germaine Greer declared "Every generation has to discover Nina Simone. She is evidence that female genius is real." What would Nina Simone say today? I think shed be mad as hell and screaming about revolution, probably still advocating for the use of violence.
Ive used some of Simones energetic and compelling motives in this composition. It is my own tribute to her genius and to how she gave to the world so much even though she was plagued with agonizing physical and mental ailments. That suffering seems to me an undercurrent in each video I have watched of her concerts. What I would give to have been in her presence for one of those concerts! She embodied music as an art form, revering her musical "teachers", Bach, especially. That she never achieved her main goal of becoming the first female African-American classical pianist of world stature is perhaps not so sad when you think of how many more people she moved with her talent expressed in jazz and folk popular idioms. But she was prone to violence and many people, even those closest to her, were often fearful of her rage. She was misunderstood for so many years and it was only in the last two decades of her life that her moods were somewhat controlled through use of prescription drugs.
The musical life that began for Eunice Waymon when she was seven years old playing the piano and organ for services at St. Lukes C.M.E. Church (where her mother was the preacher) in Tryon, N.C. traversed many cities in many countries. She died at the age of 70 in 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, France.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.