Photo by Elizabeth Leitzell. Courtesy of United States Artists.
Courtney Bryan composer new orleans piano february 2020
Courtney Bryan doesn’t mind the 10 pm phone call. She is in Rome, after all, with several other American artists whose regular check-ins with family and friends—whether from San Francisco, Providence, or, in Bryan’s case, New Orleans—must naturally adapt to the trans-Atlantic time jump. Italians don’t eat dinner until 8 pm, anyway, right? And here at the American Academy in Rome, recipients of the 2019 Rome Prize eat their weekday meals together, repurposing their conversations into collaboration, cultivation, and late-night curation of tomorrow’s new ideas. Or, in this case, an interview with a journalist checking in on one of their next great achievements.
For Bryan, a composer and pianist born and raised in the Crescent City, it’s her recent acceptance of the prestigious United States Artist Fellowship, a $50,000 grant awarded to artists of all genres toward the creative project of their choice. The award may seem like just another notch on her staff of success since becoming a professor at Tulane’s Newcomb Department of Music, where she taught on campus for two years before taking an early leave to accept the $75,000 Herb Alpert Award in 2018, but don’t let the accolades trick you into thinking that the life of an artist is all praise and no action. In Bryan’s case, no work is complete without stepping into the communities around her, eliciting talent and ideas from beyond the piano bench.
“‘Collaboration’ is an important word to me,” she said. “Growing up with both of my sisters, who are visual artists, meant that we were always creating in the house at the same time, sharing our ideas or what we were working on. So my way of working has always reflected that kind of environment.”
In the jazz tradition, especially, this focus on admiration and collaboration speaks to the nature of the artform itself.
Photo by Arielle Pentes. Courtesy of United States Artists.
courtney bryan composer pianist new orleans february 2020
“Improvisation is such a big part of everything in jazz,” said Bryan. “If you’re doing an older piece, like a Charlie Parker piece, you still need to bring in your own individual sound and create things in the moment, even if you’re performing something traditional.”
And it isn’t just the musical arts from which she draws her inspiration. With a history of interest in religion and spirituality, plus degrees from Oberlin Conservatory, Rutgers University, and Columbia University (not to mention a post-doctorate degree in African American Studies from Princeton University), Bryan has long taken stock in the broader field of the humanities to fuel her study of human nature, history, and complimentary art forms like dance, painting, or theatre.
“For the past ten years or so, I’ve tried to look at fields that seem separate from each other and make them part of my process,” she said.
Some of that trajectory stems from early experiences in New Orleans, like subbing for the organist or directing the choir at St. Luke’s Episcopal as a high school student, a type of real-world training Bryan sees as distinct from that of a university or conservatory. The same could be said of her attendance at the Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Jazz Camp, where she learned proficiency and individual style as a young artist, or of her study at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, or of her trials at the New Orleans International Piano Competition. Bryan has also composed for the New Orleans Symphony Orchestraand collaborates with local musicians and artists whenever she can.
“If you’re doing an older piece, like a Charlie Parker piece, you still need to bring in your own individual sound and create things in the moment, even if you’re performing something traditional.”
“Through college I was always doing collaboration across the arts, and by the time i got to Columbia I was doing collaborations across arts and academics, and just having discussions with people, mixing it with performances. So by the time I applied to Princeton for my post-doc, it was a natural fit.”
All of this revolves around the perennial question: how can someone tell a narrative story of history and philosophy and relationships—something usually ascribed to the visual, performing, or literary arts—with music? For Bryan, it’s an answer she constantly wants to explore. Her current project, an opera called Awakening, is a collaboration with International Contemporary Ensemble and other creatives, and tells the story of a contemporary woman in an oppressive situation who transforms with the help of three spirits from the past: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and the Shaker Eldress Rebecca Cox Jackson. Having already visited Shaker communities in upstate New York, Bryan recently traveled home to New Orleans to make a recording with local musicians, whose expertise have continued to inspire her projects, especially when they delve into social issues like investigations into the nature of political power, or the Black Lives movement.
“I do think about New Orleans when I’m working on these projects,” she said. “My recording project I did there recently was born of me wanting to work with musicians I had a history with in New Orleans, but also of me wanting to celebrate the musical community that I grew up in.”
Tulane, she said, has also been an especially fruitful chapter in her life, and she hopes to take what she has learned in Rome—and what she will continue to learn as a United States Artist Fellow—back to the classroom.
“There are things I’d love to bring to New Orleans, but I also want to draw people there, to celebrate the great music—especially experimental music—coming out of New Orleans,” she said. “I’ve been having those conversations, and I’m excited about the future there.”
